The US state of New Mexico has accused Meta of serving underage users sexually explicit content, allowing them to be contacted by child predators and facilitating the sharing and selling of child pornography, according to a lawsuit filed on Wednesday.

In the civil complaint filed against Meta and its chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, the state’s attorney-general said it had carried out an undercover investigation of the group’s Facebook, Instagram and Messenger platforms over several months, by creating “decoy accounts” of children aged 14 and under.

Investigators found the Silicon Valley company failed to remove child sexual abuse material (CSAM) from across its platforms, while explicit content was served to children even when they had not shown any interest in it, according to the attorney-general’s office.