Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody asked Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify before the Statewide Council on Human Trafficking discussing predators exploiting his social media applications to solicit victims in a press release released on Tuesday. A recent poll of Florida law enforcement agencies found that Meta owns 53% of the social media sites that have been used to assist human trafficking since 2019.
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody has requested that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg attend before the Statewide Council on Human Trafficking on Monday to explain how Meta is being used to enable sex exploitation and human trafficking.
Moody said so while revealing what she called the “stunning” and “disturbing” results of a statewide study that discovered Meta platforms are being used by human traffickers to conduct crimes more than any other social media platforms.
It appears to be a first-of-its-kind statewide inquiry and request.
Since 2019, more than half of all documented instances of social media platforms being used in Florida cases of human trafficking have involved Meta platforms, according to a new state inquiry. Incorporated among them are Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp.
Florida Attorney General’s Office
“Before launching new products or wasting time preparing for a cage match that will likely never happen, Zuckerberg should be working to make Meta’s existing platforms safer for users and to prevent vulnerable people from being forced into illicit sex work,” Moody said Monday when announcing the results of a state investigation. “The findings of our statewide survey and other reports make it clear that Meta platforms are the preferred social media applications for human traffickers looking to prey on vulnerable people. Zuckerberg needs to immediately turn his attention to this public safety threat and testify to our council about what Meta is doing to prevent its platforms from being used to assist, facilitate or support human trafficking.”
The Florida legislature commissioned the formation of the Statewide Council on Human Trafficking. The 15-member group, led by Moody, collaborates with law enforcement to combat human trafficking and issues yearly reports on the issue.
The council was tasked with looking into the frequency with which social media platforms were being used to help, facilitate, or encourage human trafficking in Florida after the state legislature approved HB 615 in 2022, which Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law. The council made its initial findings public on Monday after presenting them to the lawmakers in January.
These conclusions come from a survey that was distributed to 80 law enforcement organizations, including 67 sheriff’s offices and a number of police departments. 32 organizations responded with 376 reports totaling 376 human trafficking investigations since 2019. The majority, 271, concerned the use of social media to aid human trafficking. The majority of these, 146 of them, included Meta applications.
Moody also sent a letter to Zuckerberg on Monday requesting him to appear before the council to explain what Meta’s plans are “to stop human traffickers from using its platforms to advance this horrific crime.”
She’s requested Zuckerberg respond by September 5 at the latest or else. On October 2, the council will meet again. He has not yet commented on the situation, but his business has been defending itself against numerous lawsuits for many years that were brought up in connection with the same issue.
Meta “has long faced accusations that its platforms are a haven for sexual misconduct,” Reuters reports.
It’s currently being sued by hundreds of plaintiffs, including parents, school districts, and pension and investment funds that own stock in Meta.
The most recent lawsuit filed by the Employees’ Retirement System of the State of Rhode Island alleges that Meta’s leadership and board haven’t protected their fiduciary interests because they’ve ignored “systemic evidence” of crimes against children being allegedly committed using its platforms.
According to the complaint, Meta’s executives and directors specifically deny preventing the use of Facebook and Instagram to aid sex trafficking and child sexual exploitation. This leads to “the only logical inference that the board has consciously decided to permit Meta’s platforms to promote and facilitate sex/human trafficking,” according to the complaint.
Both Meta and Facebook have vigorously defended themselves in court, including at the Texas Supreme Court, where they lost.
In 2021, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that victims of sex trafficking could sue Facebook despite it using Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act as a defense.
Justice Blacklock said the justices “do not understand section 230 to ‘create a lawless no-man’s land on the Internet’ in which states are powerless to impose liability on websites that knowingly or intentionally participate in the evil of online human trafficking.” The court’s ruling also points out that “Congress recently amended section 230 to indicate that civil liability may be imposed on websites that violate state and federal human-trafficking laws.”
According to a 2022 Federal Human Trafficking Report found that from 2019 to 2022, Facebook was the most popular social media site for luring potential victims. Facebook and Instagram accounted for 60% of the recruitment for human trafficking on the top 10 platforms examined in the report.
According to a National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s 2022 CyberTipline report by Electronic Service Providers, over 27 million, or 85%, of incidents reported were from Meta platforms.
SACRAMENTO, CA — Former Los Angeles Mayor and current California gubernatorial candidate Antonio Villaraigosa has publicly alleged that Kamala Harris and Xavier Becerra were involved in concealing former President Joe Biden’s mental and physical decline during his time in office.
Villaraigosa, a Democrat, made the claim amid a heated California gubernatorial race. Becerra, the former Secretary of Health and Human Services, is also a candidate, while speculation continues over a potential Harris bid. The race comes as current Governor Gavin Newsom reaches the end of his second and final term, per California’s two-term limit.
In a statement referencing recent reporting and excerpts from the book Original Sin, Villaraigosa stated:
“What I’ve seen in news coverage and excerpts from the new book ‘Original Sin’ is deeply troubling. At the highest levels of our government, those in power were intentionally complicit or told outright lies in a systematic cover up to keep Joe Biden’s mental decline from the public.”
Both Harris and Becerra previously served as California Attorney General. Villaraigosa emphasized their past leadership roles, stating:
“Now, we have come to learn this cover up includes two prominent California politicians who served as California Attorney General – one who is running for Governor and another who is thinking about running for Governor.”
He added:
“Those who were complicit in the cover up should take responsibility for the part they played in this debacle, hold themselves accountable, and apologize to the American people. I call on Kamala Harris and Xavier Becerra to do just that – and make themselves available to voters and the free press because there’s a lot of questions that need to be answered.”
Becerra responded in a statement, saying:
“It’s clear the President was getting older, but he made the mission clear: run the largest health agency in the world, expand care to millions more Americans than ever before, negotiate down the cost of prescription drugs, and pull us out of a world-wide pandemic. And we delivered.”
Kamala Harris has not issued a public response. Fox News Digital reported that it reached out to the offices of Harris and the Bidens but had not received a reply at the time of publication.
The allegations come as discussions about Biden’s cognitive and physical health continue. Earlier this month, during an appearance on The View, Biden dismissed claims of cognitive decline during his presidency.
In related developments, Biden’s personal office recently confirmed that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer characterized by a high Gleason score and metastasis to the bone.
Villaraigosa’s comments are the latest in a growing list of concerns raised within the Democratic Party about leadership transparency and accountability in the final years of the Biden administration.
A newly released interim report from Senator Ron Johnson’s office claims top U.S. health officials in the Biden administration withheld critical information in early 2021 about potential heart-related side effects associated with mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. The 54-page report alleges that despite receiving multiple warnings about the risks—particularly cases of myocarditis and related conditions in young people—federal agencies delayed issuing formal alerts for several months.
According to the report, health officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) were informed as early as February 2021 about international concerns, including an attempt by Israel’s Ministry of Health to raise alarm over roughly 40 myocarditis cases tied to the Pfizer vaccine. At that time, Israel’s vaccination campaign was further along than the U.S.’s, offering an early view of potential adverse effects.
In response to Israel’s outreach, FDA officials acknowledged limitations in existing data and asked for further information. However, despite growing domestic reports of heart inflammation—more than 158 cases by April—the agencies did not formally update the public until late June. The vaccine was nonetheless approved for adolescents in May.
By late May, internal deliberations began over whether to issue a Health Alert Network (HAN) message, which is typically used by the CDC to quickly notify clinicians and public health departments of emerging health threats. Some officials reportedly feared sounding “alarmist.” Others questioned whether the data truly warranted a full-scale warning. Ultimately, the HAN alert was shelved in favor of a more subdued website notice issued on May 28.
In the interim, internal talking points continued to describe the condition as rare and urged continued vaccination. The official FDA label for both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines wasn’t updated to reflect the myocarditis risk until June 25.
The report, while critical, notes that many individuals who developed myocarditis, pericarditis, or myopericarditis after vaccination experienced a resolution of symptoms, a finding consistent with CDC data.
Senator Johnson, a frequent critic of the federal pandemic response, has argued that transparency was lacking during this period. “The full extent of the Biden administration’s failure to immediately warn the public about all COVID-19 vaccine adverse events must be completely exposed,” the report concludes.
Health officials involved in the decisions, including then-FDA commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock and then-CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, have not yet publicly responded to the findings in the interim report.
The release comes amid ongoing political scrutiny over pandemic-era decision-making and the future of public health communications in the wake of COVID-19. The Biden administration and health agencies have consistently maintained that the benefits of mRNA vaccines outweigh the risks, particularly during the height of the pandemic when COVID-19 posed a significant public health threat.
As investigations continue, Johnson’s subcommittee says it plans to further examine the internal communications and decision-making processes of the nation’s top health agencies.
A newly released analysis is raising serious questions about the safety profile of mifepristone, the drug responsible for over half of abortions in the United States. While abortion-rights advocates, corporate media outlets, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) maintain that the drug is “safe and effective,” a comprehensive study based on real-world insurance claims paints a far more concerning picture.
Described as the “largest known study of the abortion pill,” the report was conducted by Ethics and Public Policy Center President Ryan Anderson and Director of Data Analysis Jamie Bryan Hall. Using a massive dataset that included Medicaid, TRICARE, Medicare, Department of Veterans Affairs, and private insurance claims, the researchers analyzed 865,727 prescriptions of mifepristone distributed to 692,873 women between 2017 and 2023.
The findings are striking: approximately 10.9 percent of those chemical abortions—about 94,605 cases—involved potentially life-threatening “serious adverse events” within 45 days of taking the drug. These complications included emergency room visits, hemorrhage, sepsis, infection, and follow-up surgeries. This complication rate is at least 22 times higher than the <0.5 percent figure cited by the FDA on the Mifeprex label.
The researchers noted that some patients experienced complications in multiple categories, and that the 45-day window used for measurement was “conservative,” especially considering that the FDA has relied on studies using a timeframe of up to 72 days.
One chart from the study revealed that among women who sought post-abortion care within 45 days:
15.1% visited the emergency room,
8.5% required surgical treatment,
2.5% experienced hemorrhage,
1.9% suffered infections, and
0.9% were diagnosed with sepsis.
“These outcomes were drawn from actual claims data,” the researchers emphasized, “not modeled projections or self-reported surveys.” In Anderson’s words to The Federalist: “This study is the statistical equivalent of a category 5 hurricane hitting the prevailing narrative of the abortion industry. It reveals, based on real-world data, the shocking number of women who suffer serious medical consequences because of the abortion pill.”
The FDA originally approved mifepristone in 2000 based on 10 clinical trials involving only 30,966 patients—women who were described as “prescreened,” “generally healthy,” and treated in controlled environments. The authors of the new study argue that those trials are both outdated and unrepresentative of today’s broad and diverse patient base.
“The women in our dataset receive (or fail to receive) pre- and post-abortion healthcare of the real-world quality that prevails in the U.S. today, not the carefully controlled regimen of care that ordinarily prevails in a clinical trial,” the study says.
Despite repeated petitions from pro-life medical groups to revisit the approval of mifepristone, the FDA has consistently declined to take action. Critics argue the agency failed to meet its legal obligation to address the concerns. Meanwhile, regulatory oversight has continued to loosen. By 2016, the FDA under the Obama administration had altered the drug’s dosing, cut down the number of in-person doctor visits required, broadened who could prescribe it, and eliminated requirements to report non-fatal complications.
The Biden administration went further. In 2021, the FDA permanently allowed mifepristone to be delivered by mail, bypassing the need for a clinic visit. Pharmacies like Walgreens and CVS were later authorized to dispense the pill. As of 2023, a woman can obtain mifepristone with just one telehealth appointment with “any approved healthcare provider (not necessarily a physician)” and self-administer the drug at home. Alarmingly, prescribers are not required to report adverse events unless they learn the patient has died.
The study recommends that the FDA reinstate its original safety protocols. These would include requiring multiple in-person visits, physician-only prescribing, ultrasound confirmation of gestational age and the absence of ectopic pregnancy, and mandatory reporting of complications. The goal, according to the authors, is not only to reduce immediate harm but also to facilitate better long-term safety tracking.
“The FDA should further investigate the harm this drug causes to women and, based on objective safety criteria, reconsider its approval altogether. Women deserve better than the abortion pill,” the study concludes.
While legal efforts to challenge the pill’s availability have so far been unsuccessful, the issue remains live. In 2023, the Supreme Court declined to weigh in on the merits of mifepristone’s approval, ruling that the plaintiffs lacked standing. However, Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s opinion left open the possibility for the Court to consider a more suitable challenge in the future.
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