:Dozens of U.S. states are suing Meta Platforms and its Instagram unit, accusing them of contributing to a youth mental health crisis due to the addictive nature of their social media platforms.
In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court in Oakland, Calif., 33 states, including California and Illinois, said Meta, which also operates Facebook, repeatedly misled the public about the substantial dangers of its platforms and had knowingly incited young children and adolescents to become addictive. and compulsive use of social media.
“Meta leveraged powerful and unprecedented technologies to attract, engage, and ultimately entrap youth and adolescents,” the complaint states. “His motivation is profit.”
The lawsuit seeks a variety of relief, including substantial civil penalties.
The Meta lawsuit is the latest in a series of lawsuits against social media companies on behalf of children and teenagers. ByteDance’s TikTok and Google’s YouTube are also the subject of hundreds of lawsuits filed on behalf of children and school districts over the addictive nature of social media.
Meta said she had sought to keep young people safe online.
“We are disappointed that instead of working productively with industry companies to create clear, age-appropriate standards for the many apps used by teens, the attorneys general have chosen this path,” Meta said in a statement.
Much of the attention on Meta stemmed from the release of documents in 2021 that showed Meta had data showing that Instagram, which started as a photo-sharing app, was addictive and worsening problems with body image among some adolescent girls.
The lawsuit alleges that Meta works to ensure that young people spend as much time as possible on social media, even though they know that adolescent brains are sensitive to the need for approval in the form of “likes.” from other users regarding their content. Meta misleadingly publicly denied that his social media was harmful, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit alleges that Meta also violated a law prohibiting the collection of data on children under 13.
The lawsuit also alleged that Meta sought to expand what the States consider harmful practices into virtual reality, including Meta’s Horizon Worlds platform as well as the communications apps WhatsApp and Messenger.
Nine more states are expected to file similar lawsuits on Tuesday, bringing the total number of states suing to 42.
The Menlo Park, Calif., company and other social media companies already face hundreds of lawsuits filed on behalf of children and school districts raising similar claims.
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