Meta’s Facebook and Instagram have been sued by 41 states over allegations of platforms manipulating children; Possible fines in the billions demanded

It’s about the US vs. Mark Zuckerberg over the social media platforms’ tactics towards children, or at least the majority of the US.

Forty-one states are suing Instagram and Facebook parent company Meta today over the strategies and algorithms they use to grab young people’s attention and keep them scrolling endlessly. While Meta promised to make the platforms safe for minors and their mental health, it essentially ignored all important safeguards, such as “alternative age verification,” as the lawsuit states, that could help with such protections.

“Research has shown that youth use of Meta’s social media platforms is associated with depression, anxiety, insomnia, impairment in education and daily living, and many other negative consequences,” says the scorching class-action lawsuit, filed by 33 states at the federal filed in court. on Tuesday. , including California and New York. “Yet Meta has continued to deny and downplay these harmful effects on the public and promote its platforms as safe for young users,” it continues (read the addiction lawsuit against social media platforms here).

While the District of Columbia and eight other attorneys general are taking their own actions in various jurisdictions, the multi-state lawsuit details the overall case — and you won’t want to scroll past it, because it’s pretty damning. With individual fines for violations starting at $2,500 each in states like Meta’s home base of California, the bigger financial hit for the Zuckerberg-founded tech giant could be in the billions of dollars, based on the hundreds of millions of users that IG and Facebook have. .

“Over the past decade, Meta—by itself and through its flagship social media platforms Facebook and Instagram (its social media platforms or platforms)—has profoundly altered the psychological and social realities of a generation of young Americans,” the 233rd complaint said. provisional facility and more say.

In many ways, this latest lawsuit grew out of whistleblower revelations and a 2021 investigation by state attorneys general across the country that investigated whether Meta violated consumer protection laws in its pursuit of targeting the under-18 demographic — Today’s conclusion appears to be a resounding conclusion. Yes!

“Meta has employed powerful and unprecedented technologies to attract, engage, and ultimately entrap youth and teens,” the joint national filing continued. “The motive is profit, and in its efforts to maximize its financial gains, Meta has repeatedly misled the public about the real dangers of its social media platforms. It has obscured the way these platforms exploit and manipulate their most vulnerable consumers: teenagers and children. And it ignored the profound damage these platforms have done to the mental and physical health of our nation’s youth. In doing so, Meta committed and continues to engage in fraudulent and illegal conduct that violates state and federal laws.”

Meta did not respond to Deadline’s request for comment on the joint lawsuit and the other individual state actions. If so, we’ll update this post.

“We share the Attorney General’s commitment to providing youth with safe and positive online experiences and have already introduced more than 30 tools to support youth and their families,” a Meta spokesperson said of the lawsuit. “We are disappointed that state attorneys general have chosen this path instead of working productively with companies across the industry to create clear, age-appropriate standards for the many apps that teenagers use.”

Wall Street reacted at least in part to the multistate case itself. Meta shares, which have more than doubled so far in 2023, fell a fraction of a point on news of the lawsuit.

Dade Hayes contributed to this report