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New Mexico sues Meta, Mark Zuckerberg for facilitating child sex trafficking

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From LifeSiteNews

By Emily Mangiaracina

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez concluded that Facebook and Instagram have become ‘prime locations’ for sexual predators to trade child pornography and ‘solicit minors for sex.’

New Mexico’s attorney general filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, for facilitating child sex trafficking as well as the distribution of child sex abuse material.

Attorney General Raúl Torrez, a career prosecutor who has specialized in internet crimes against children, concluded after his office’s months-long investigation that Meta’s social media platforms are “not safe spaces for children, but rather prime locations for predators to trade child pornography and solicit minors for sex.”

The New Mexico Office of the Attorney General found that Meta “directs harmful and inappropriate material” at minors and “allows unconnected adults to have unfettered access to them,” despite the fact that Meta is capable of both identifying these users as minors and “providing warnings or other protections against” the harmful material. Worse, such material “poses substantial dangers of solicitation and trafficking.”

According to the lawsuit, the investigation found that, “[s]pecifically, with accounts clearly belonging to children,” Meta has:

Proactively served and directed them to a stream of egregious, sexually explicit images through recommended users and posts – even where the child has expressed no interest in this content;

Enabled adults to find, message, and groom minors, soliciting them to sell pictures or participate in pornographic videos;

Fostered unmoderated user groups devoted to or facilitating Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC);

Allowed users to search for, like, share, and sell a crushing volume of child sexual abuse material (CSAM);

Allowed, and failed to detect, a fictional mother offering her 13-year old for trafficking, and solicited the 13-year old to create her own professional page and sell advertising.

The lawsuit clarified that Meta’s role in facilitating child sex trafficking and CSAM has not been simply that of a “publisher”  but has involved algorithms that “search and disseminate sexually exploitative and explicit materials,” helping to grow a network of social media users seeking to buy and sell the images, as well as the children.

Investigators reported Meta accounts showing sexually explicit depictions of children but found that about half of a sample of the reported content was still available days before they filed a lawsuit. Removed content often reappeared, or Meta recommended “alternative, equally problematic content to users,” the investigators found.

While a search for pornography on Facebook was “blocked and returned no results,” the same search on Instagram returned “numerous” accounts depicting pornography, nudity, pedophilia, and sexual assault.

Remarkably, according to the lawsuit, “certain child exploitative content” is 10 times more common on Facebook and Instagram as compared to the notorious pornographic website PornHub and the “adult content” platform OnlyFans.

The investigators’ findings underscore the growing problem not only of child sex trafficking but of “porn-made pedophiles,” a phenomenon testified to by child protection expert Michael Sheath. These are “people who were not initially attracted to children” but whose brains have been “rewired by compulsive porn consumption to be attracted to children, often because they escalate to increasingly extreme content as their porn addiction progresses,” in the words of Jonathon Van Maren.

The Unherd article “How porn breeds paedophiles” shares what Sheath learned as a probation officer trying to understand male sex offenders.

“Eventually, these men would reveal how they operated. Many of the men talked about mainstream, free and legal porn having been a gateway to the illegal stuff, and some went on to create porn themselves, which, of course, requires children to be abused,” he explained.

The findings of the New Mexico AG’s office have been corroborated by a two-year investigation by The Guardian, which found that Meta is failing to “prevent criminals from using its platforms to buy and sell children for sex,” as minors are being advertised for sex trafficking on Instagram, and Facebook is also being used to facilitate such trafficking.

In fact, according to the Guardian report, several pension and investment funds that own Meta stock sued the company in March for failing to act on “systemic evidence” that its platforms are facilitating sex trafficking and child sexual exploitation.

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International

Germany launches first permanent foreign troop deployment since WW2

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Germany activated a 5,000-strong armored brigade in Lithuania — marking its first permanent foreign military deployment since World War II. The move strengthens NATO’s eastern flank amid Ukraine’s ongoing conflict with Russia.

Key Details:

  • The 45th Armored Brigade was formally launched outside Vilnius on Tuesday.
  • Germany plans for the brigade to be fully operational by 2027 in Rūdninkai, near the Belarus border.
  • The deployment marks a major policy shift for Berlin and a boost for NATO’s deterrence posture.

Diving Deeper:

Germany has officially entered a new era of military engagement, launching its first permanent foreign troop deployment since the end of World War II. The move, announced Tuesday, sees the activation of a 5,000-strong armored brigade in Lithuania as part of a broader NATO strategy to counter the perceived threat from Russia.

The newly formed 45th Armored Brigade was ceremonially inaugurated outside the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius. German Brigadier General Christoph Huber assumed command, overseeing the establishment of a temporary headquarters and unveiling the unit’s crest. “We have a clear mission: to ensure the protection, freedom and security of our Lithuanian allies on NATO’s eastern flank,” Huber said, adding that the unit’s presence also directly contributes to the defense of Germany and NATO as a whole.

The deployment follows a pledge made by Berlin in 2023 — a decision that broke with decades of postwar defense policy rooted in military restraint. German officials had long avoided permanently stationing combat troops abroad. That posture has changed in response to Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, which has turned the Baltic region into one of NATO’s most vulnerable frontlines.

Germany’s commitment includes more than just fighting forces. The brigade will also feature key support elements, such as a medical center, communications specialists, and command support units dispersed across multiple Lithuanian locations. Troops will initially operate out of temporary facilities, with a permanent base under construction in Rūdninkai, located roughly 30 kilometers south of Vilnius.

Currently, 150 German soldiers are already on the ground in Lithuania. That figure is expected to rise to 500 by the end of the year as the new brigade scales up operations.

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Censorship Industrial Complex

China announces “improvements” to social credit system

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Beijing released new guidelines Monday to revamp its social credit system, promising stronger information controls while deepening the system’s reach across China’s economy and society. Critics say the move reinforces the Communist Party’s grip under the banner of “market efficiency.”

Key Details:

  • The guideline was issued by top Chinese government and Communist Party offices, listing 23 measures to expand and standardize the social credit system.
  • It aims to integrate the credit system across all sectors of China’s economy to support what Beijing calls “high-quality development.”
  • Officials claim the new framework will respect information security and individual rights—despite growing global concerns over surveillance and state overreach.

Diving Deeper:

China is doubling down on its social credit system with a newly issued guideline meant to “improve” and expand the controversial surveillance-driven program. Released by both the Communist Party’s Central Committee and the State Council, the document outlines 23 specific measures aimed at building a unified national credit system that will touch nearly every corner of Chinese society.

Framed as a tool for “high-quality development,” the guideline declares that credit assessments will increasingly shape the rules of engagement for businesses, government agencies, and individual citizens. The system, according to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), has already played a role in shaping China’s financial services, government efficiency, and business environment.

Critics of the social credit system have long warned that it serves as an instrument of authoritarian control—monitoring citizens’ behavior, punishing dissent, and rewarding obedience to the Communist Party. By integrating credit data across all sectors and enforcing a “shared benefits” model, the new guideline appears to entrench, not ease, the Party’s involvement in everyday life.

Still, Beijing is attempting to temper foreign and domestic concerns over privacy. The NDRC emphasized that the system is being built on the “fundamental principle” of protecting personal data. Officials pledged to avoid excessive data collection and crack down on any unlawful use of information.

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