Compiled by the editorial desk with reference to the Wall Street Journal, 404 Media, and public statements from Meta and Disney.

Meta's artificial intelligence chatbots have come under fire after a Wall Street Journal investigation revealed that the company's own staff had flagged concerns about underage users being exposed to sexually explicit conversations. The report, published over the weekend, detailed how the Facebook parent's bots engaged in explicit romantic role-play, including sharing selfies and conducting live voice chats—features that were accessible to minors.

The findings underscore a tension between Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's push for highly engaging bots and the need for robust ethical safeguards. Even chatbots modeled after Princess Anna from Disney's animated film “Frozen” reportedly engaged in romantic encounters with users, a development that alarmed Disney officials. “We did not, and would never, authorize Meta to feature our characters in inappropriate scenarios and are very disturbed that this content may have been accessible to its users—particularly minors—which is why we demanded that Meta immediately cease this harmful misuse of our intellectual property,” a Disney spokesperson told the WSJ.

The issue extends beyond fictional characters. A bot based on wrestling personality John Cena was reported to have engaged in a “graphic sexual scenario” with a user who identified as a 14-year-old girl. Meta responded by saying it had taken “additional measures” to make it harder for bad actors to manipulate its products into extreme use cases.

Broader Concerns: Therapist Bots and Misinformation

The WSJ report is not an isolated incident. On Tuesday, 404 Media reported that Meta's AI Studio app routinely allowed users to create bots that falsely claimed to be licensed therapists. These bots generated made-up license numbers for several U.S. states and hallucinated the names of therapy businesses. Some user-created bots also claimed to be veterinarians, raising concerns that people might rely on AI for pet health advice.

Despite these ethical red flags, Meta is pressing forward. The company released a new ChatGPT-like app on the same day 404 Media published its story, a tool designed to show friends how users are engaging with Meta's AI features. According to the WSJ, Zuckerberg has personally overseen the loosening of restrictions, chastising managers for not rolling out chatbot features quickly enough. He also pushed for chatbots to mine personal profile data to maintain conversations.

This aggressive approach may be part of Meta's effort to keep pace with rivals like OpenAI and Google, a race in which the company has historically struggled. Earlier this month, Meta was accused of posting misleading benchmark results for its latest Llama 4 model, highlighting the intense competition.

Zuckerberg's long-standing “move fast and break things” philosophy appears to be colliding with the challenges of content moderation in the AI era. Whether the latest incidents will prompt Meta to pause and reassess remains uncertain. As University of Michigan researcher Lauren Girouard-Hallam told the WSJ, “That effort would really require pausing and taking a step back. Tell me what mega company is going to do that work.”