Dozens of U.S. states, including California and New York, are suing Meta Platforms Inc. for harming young people and contributing to the youth mental health crisis by knowingly and deliberately designing features on Instagram and Facebook that make children addicted to its platforms.
A trial filed by 33 states in federal court in California, claims Meta routinely collects data from children under the age of 13 without parental consent, in violation of federal law. Additionally, nine attorneys general are filing lawsuits in their respective states, bringing the total number of states taking action to 41.
Meta has harnessed powerful and unprecedented technologies to attract, engage and ultimately ensnare young people and adolescents. His motivation is profit, and in seeking to maximize his financial gains, Meta has repeatedly misled the public about the substantial dangers of his social media platforms, the complaint states. It has covered up how these platforms exploit and manipulate their most vulnerable consumers: adolescents and children.
The lawsuits seek financial damages, restitution and an end to Metas’ practices that violate the law.
Children and adolescents are suffering record levels of poor mental health and social media companies like Meta are to blame, New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. Meta has profited from children’s pain by intentionally designing its platforms with manipulative features that make children addicted to their platforms while lowering their self-esteem.
In a statement, Meta said it shares the attorneys general’s commitment to providing teens with safe and positive online experiences and has already introduced more than 30 tools to support teens and their families.
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, the company added.
This sweeping federal prosecution is the result of an investigation by a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general from California, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee and Vermont. It follows damning newspaper articles, first published by The Wall Street Journal in fall 2021, based on Metas’ own research that found the company was aware of the harm Instagram can cause teens, especially teen girls, when it comes to mental health and body image issues . An internal study cited 13.5% of teen girls saying Instagram makes suicidal thoughts worse and 17% of teen girls saying it makes eating disorders worse.
Following the first reports, a consortium of news organizationsincluding the Associated Press, published their own findings based on documents leaked by whistleblower Frances Haugen, who testified before Congress and a British parliamentary committee about her findings.
Meta harmed our children and teens, cultivating an addiction to increase corporate profits, said California Attorney General Rob Bonta. With today’s trial, we set the limit.
Social media use among adolescents is almost universal in the United States and many other parts of the world. Almost all teenagers In the United States, 13- to 17-year-olds report using a social media platform, with about a third reporting using social media almost constantly, according to the Pew Research Center.
To comply with federal regulations, social media companies prohibit children under 13 from registering on their platforms, but children have been shown to easily circumvent bans, with or without their parents’ consent. , and many young children have social media accounts. The state’s complaint says Meta knowingly violated that law, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, by collecting data about children without informing and obtaining permission from their parents.
Other measures taken by social platforms to address concerns about children’s mental health are also easily circumvented. For example, TikTok recently introduced a default setting 60 minute delay for users under 18 years old. But once the limit is reached, minors can simply enter a password to continue watching. TikTok, Snapchat and other social platforms that have also been accused of contributing to the youth mental health crisis are not part of Tuesday’s trial.
Washington DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb would not say whether they also looked at TikTok or Snapchat. For now, they’re focusing on Facebook and Instagram’s Meta empire, he said.
They are the worst of the worst when it comes to using technology to get teenagers addicted to social media, all in an effort to put profits before people.
In May, the United States General Surgeon Dr. Vivek Murthy called on tech companies, parents and guardians to take immediate action to protect children from the harms of social media now.
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Associated Press writers Michael Casey, Michael Goldberg, Susan Haigh, Maysoon Khan and Ashraf Khalil contributed to this story.
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