The claim is made in the main article, supported by this link [1]. But I agree, I suspect it’s sensationalized, just because that number is _so high_.

[1] https://techoversight.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/08-2023...

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kstrauser 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Oh! Wow, so it is. Thanks!

> [the report] found that 65% of child sex trafficking victims recruited on social media were recruited from Facebook

Even in 2020, I'm very skeptical that so many children were on Facebook that it could account for 2/3 of recruitment. My own kids say that they and their friends are all but allergic to Facebook. It's the uncool hangout for old people, not where teens want to be.

I may be wrong, and I'm certainly not going to tell someone that they're wrong for citing a government study. Still, I doubt it.

	▲	jacobsimon 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The number is wrong / the citation is misleading. It’s closer to 20-30% according to that study, the 79% is referring specifically to cases involving social media, of which Meta platforms are obviously going to make up a large percentage. There’s also a reporting bias here I’m sure - if Meta is better at reporting these cases then they will become a larger percentage, etc.
	▲	saalweachter 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		You don't really need a majority of potential victims to go to location X for victims from location X to make up a majority of victims; that just means that location X is a low-risk, high-reward place for criminals to lurk looking for victims.
	▲	pinkmuffinere 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Thanks for looking into it and pulling out that quote. I notice there are some moving goalposts — the parent article claims 79% of _all_ minor sexual trafficking (emphasis mine), but the govt report found > 65% of child sex trafficking victims recruited _on social media_ were recruited from Facebook, with 14% being recruited on Instagram (Emphasis mine). I think the parent article is repeatedly lying about the facts, that’s super annoying. I’m not at all surprised that Facebook and Instagram have the lions share of social-media victims, because they also have the lions share of social media users.