Meta Contractors Posed as Teens to Prompt Rival Chatbots About Suicide, Sex, and Drugs

Hundreds of contractors working for a major technology company posed as minors online to test how competitor chatbots respond to prompts about sensitive topics like suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, and drug use. The project, which involved creating fake underage accounts and sending over 45,000 prompts to rival systems, was conducted without the knowledge or consent of the companies being tested. The effort raises concerns among former workers about whether the testing methods violated the terms of service of competitor platforms and whether the project's scale and secrecy represent legitimate safety testing or something more problematic.