Hundreds of contractors working on a project for Meta were instructed to pose as children and probe rival chatbots, including Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT, with prompts involving sensitive topics such as suicide, sex, and drugs, according to a report by WIRED. These contractors, based in Kenya, submitted images related to their inquiries, including pills, knives, nooses, and medical diagrams of gynecological procedures.
Hundreds of contractors working on a project for Meta pretended to be kids—and then prompted rival chatbots like Gemini and ChatGPT to discuss high-risk subjects. https://t.co/lw2Zp0ffdL
— WIRED (@WIRED) June 29, 2026
The prompts were designed to test rival AI systems and expose potential failures in their ability to handle dangerous content aimed at minors. This testing comes amid ongoing scrutiny concerning how tech companies ensure the safety of their products, particularly for children. Meta faced criticism of its own chatbots following an internal red-team assessment revealing that they had a 66.8% failure rate in blocking child sexual exploitation content and a 54.8% failure rate for suicide and self-harm prompts. In response to legal pressure, Meta paused teen access to AI companion characters in January 2026.
A previous report from a Swedish news outlet indicated that Meta’s contractors in Kenya actively tested how competitors manage sensitive conversations with users claiming to be underage. This development aligns with Meta’s broader strategy to move away from human content moderation.
The company plans to replace over 90% of its content review workforce with large language models by the end of 2026, as reported by the Financial Times. This transition has already resulted in a shift of approximately half of all human review requests to AI this year, with claims that AI systems make 13% fewer mistakes and identify 10% more policy violations than human reviewers.
The human cost of this initiative has been significant. In April, the Nairobi-based outsourcing firm Sama issued redundancy notices to 1,108 employees after Meta ended a major engagement due to whistleblower reports. These reports highlighted disturbing content that Kenyan workers were asked to review, much of it gathered through Meta’s smart glasses footage.
Meta’s approach, involving low-paid overseas contractors to test competitors while cutting moderation jobs, illustrates the ongoing tensions in the AI safety debate. The rapid deployment of powerful AI systems occurs alongside reduced human oversight, raising concerns about their handling of sensitive content involving minors.
