Human Rights Watch identifies Facebook and TikTok algorithms as drivers of child recruitment by Colombian armed groups
Human Rights Watch reported that Facebook and TikTok recommendation algorithms have actively amplified content from Colombian armed groups, facilitating the recruitment of at least 1,500 children since 2021. The report highlights a reactive pattern where platforms only removed specific content after being flagged, while the algorithms proactively pushed recruitment-focused content to users who had not searched for it. Indigenous children make up nearly half of all documented recruits, despite representing only 4 percent of the national population. FARC dissident groups were responsible for 74 percent of these cases, with the commander Iván Mordisco leading the largest faction. The report notes that the same engagement-optimization design currently being litigated in US federal court—where 29 state attorneys general allege Meta deliberately engineered algorithms to maximize engagement at the expense of children's mental health—is the mechanism responsible for amplifying these war-crime-level recruitments. Human Rights Watch called on Meta and ByteDance to conduct human rights due diligence to proactively mitigate adverse impacts rather than simply responding to flagged content.