That’s a lot of staff and a lot of bans

The Press reports:

“Globally, Meta has invested more than US$20b in safety and security since 2016 and employs over 40,000 people in safety and security roles worldwide.”

40,000 staff!

Meta said that in the first quarter of 2025, it removed “5.1 million pieces of bullying and harassing content globally – 73.3% of which was removed before anyone reported it to us”.

TikTok said similar things in its submission to the committee: “TikTok invests more than US$2b each year in our trust and safety work globally. This supports tens of thousands of trust and safety experts, alongside sophisticated AI tools, who work around the clock, across the globe, to keep our platform safe.”

TikTok said that from the start of 2023 to mid-2025, it permanently banned more than 375,000 accounts and removed more than 1.3m videos in New Zealand for violating community guidelines. It said it removed more than 280,000 accounts in New Zealand of users suspected of being under 13.

Wait – Til Tok banned 375,000 NZ accounts?? That’s a huge number. Why?

Meta said that in the first quarter of 2025, “we found and took action on 6.8m pieces of suicide and self-injury content, including eating disorder content, on Facebook and 9.9m on Instagram, of which 98.9% and 99.1% respectively was found and actioned before it was reported to us.”

The problem with eating disorders isn’t people on Meta promoting anorexia. It is young women and girls constantly seeing images of perfect bodies, and it driving them to thinking their body needs to change, and developing anorexia.