The dirty dozen

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MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Good Friday, April 3. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. 

Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

For years now, whistleblowers, lawmakers, and parents have warned that some of the biggest names in tech are not doing enough to protect children online.

BROWN: Each year, NCOSE—the National Center on Sexual Exploitation—names companies it says are putting users at risk … 12 companies in particular. 

WORLD’s Harrison Watters has the group’s 2026 report.

HARRISON WATTERS: The “Dirty Dozen” this year includes online stores that allow minors to browse explicit products … including Apple’s App Store, the video game platform Steam, and Amazon Prime. It also calls out xAI’s chatbot Grok for explicit conversations, including in its chats for children. And Google gets the spotlight for its Chromebook and Android products that provide gateways to pornography through insufficient parental controls and optional content filtering.

NCOSE Executive Director Haley McNamara says these companies are aware of the problems. In her view, they’re choosing instead to use customer data for their own profit.

MCNAMARA: They get more engagement and more eyeballs by maybe allowing minors under the age of 13 on there who shouldn't be on there, or by allowing adults to contact kids, or allowing other nefarious features that they could clamp down on.

The list also names Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg by name for failing to take action to protect children on Instagram. 

In 2024, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley confronted Zuckerberg for knowing about teenagers exposed to harmful content but not stopping it.

HAWLEY: Will you take personal responsibility?

ZUCKERBERG: Senator, I view my job and the job of our company as building the best tools that we can to keep our community safe—

HAWLEY: Well, you're failing at that.

ZUCKERBERG: Well, Senator, we're doing an industry leading effort. We build AI tools—

HAWLEY: Oh nonsense. Your product is killing people…

Up till now, digital media companies have deflected lawsuits because of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law that says companies are not liable for third party content. 

But that’s changing. In December, members of the Senate introduced a bill to end that rule.

Then last week, courts in New Mexico and California respectively ruled against Meta for facilitating sexual exploitation and addictive product features. The company plans to appeal those rulings…but during the New Mexico trial, Meta announced that by May, it will shut down end-to-end encrypted chats on Instagram. Predatory adults have used that tool to groom children without authorities or Meta able to track them.

McNamara says the recent rulings may bring more legal pressure:

MCNAMARA: I think sometimes people hear lawsuits and they think, "Oh, so now the company is going to be liable for everything that ever happens on its platform." No, this is just survivors to have their chance to have a day in court to plead to their specific case.

NCOSE is also petitioning the Supreme Court to take a case against Twitter, now X, for facilitating the spread of child sexual abuse material. McNamara says the fight lies on multiple fronts:

MCNAMARA: Parents, of course, have a duty, but these online platforms have a duty as well.

She also hopes that between courts and Congress, big tech companies will be forced to take responsibility for business decisions that allow children and young women to be exploited.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Harrison Watters in Washington.

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