{"id":18602,"date":"2025-06-07T21:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-08T03:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/?p=18602"},"modified":"2025-06-07T22:35:24","modified_gmt":"2025-06-08T04:35:24","slug":"labrador-letter-keeping-idaho-families-informed-about-online-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/labrador-letter-keeping-idaho-families-informed-about-online-safety\/","title":{"rendered":"Labrador Letter: Keeping Idaho Families Informed About Online Safety"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dear Friends,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As both a parent and Idaho\u2019s Attorney General, I\u2019m deeply troubled by recent reports that Meta\u2019s AI technology is exposing children to sexually explicit content and potentially facilitating online predators. I want to take a moment to share what Idaho families need to know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My office has joined a 28-state coalition demanding immediate answers<\/a> from Meta about disturbing findings that their AI assistant, integrated across Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp, may be putting children at serious risk of exploitation. Nearly a billion people use this feature monthly, and many of those users are minors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Investigators found that Meta\u2019s AI personas were engaging in sexual conversations with users who identify as children. In one case, an AI pretending to be a celebrity had explicit exchanges with someone posing as a 14-year-old girl. The AI even acknowledged this was illegal. Just as troubling, adults can interact with AI personas identifying as children, giving predators a way to practice grooming behaviors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What makes this worse is that Meta reportedly removed safety guardrails to make their AI \u201cless boring\u201d and more \u201chumanlike,\u201d despite internal warnings from their own staff. One Meta employee reportedly wrote: \u201cThe full mental health impacts of humans forging meaningful connections with fictional chatbots are still widely unknown. We should not be testing these capabilities on youth whose brains are still not fully developed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another thing that concerns me is that Meta has assured parents that their AI tools are \u201csafe and appropriate for all ages.\u201d Their parent guides claim these tools come with \u201cguidelines that tell a generative AI model what it can and cannot produce.\u201d But those guides fail to mention any risks related to sexual content or romantic role-play capabilities. This means that parents are being kept in the dark about these dangers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But technology keeps changing, and our commitment doesn\u2019t. That\u2019s why Idaho led the way last year when the Legislature passed House Bill 465, now Idaho Code Section 18-1507C. This forward-looking statute criminalizes the production, distribution, receipt, possession, or access of visual representations of child sexual abuse created using generative AI or machine learning. We were one of the first states in the country to recognize this emerging threat and give our prosecutors the tools they need to combat it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, here\u2019s what this means for your family. The same platforms your children use every day to connect with friends may also expose them to AI companions that aren\u2019t what they seem. These synthetic personas can engage in inappropriate conversations with minors and may normalize dangerous interactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve given Meta until June 10 to answer critical questions: <\/p>\n\n\n\n