Numerous states are suing Meta, alleging its platforms, including Instagram and Facebook, have “profoundly altered the psychological and social realities of a generation of young Americans.”
The 228-page complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California claims that Meta’s business model specifically targets young users, monetizing their attention through data harvesting and targeting advertising and using features to prolong their time on social media for profit.
The complaint says, “Meta has harnessed powerful and unprecedented technologies to entice, engage, and ultimately ensnare youth and teens,” the complaint says. “Its motive is profit, and in seeking to maximize its financial gains, Meta has repeatedly misled the public about the substantial dangers of its Social Media Platforms.”
It continues, “It has concealed the ways in which these Platforms exploit and manipulate its most vulnerable consumers: teenagers and children. And it has ignored the sweeping damage these Platforms have caused to the mental and physical health of our nation’s youth. In doing so, Meta engaged in, and continues to engage in, deceptive and unlawful conduct in violation of state and federal law.
The lawsuit, which includes at least 32 states so far, alleges that Meta “misled its users and the public by boasting a low prevalence of harmful content” while being “keenly aware” its platforms’ features “cause young users significant physical and mental harm.” The filing says Meta’s recommendation algorithm promotes “compulsive use,” which the company doesn’t disclose. The lawsuit claims that social comparison features like “Likes” promote mental health harms for young users, while visual filters are known to promote body dysmorphia and eating disorders.
The complaint says Meta offers features “that claim to promote a connection between friends but serve to increase young users’ time spent on the platform.” The lawsuit accuses Meta of “routinely publishing misleading reports boasting a deceptively low incidence of user harms.” It alleges that “despite overwhelming internal research, independent expert analysis, and publicly available data that its Social Media Platforms harm young users, Meta still refuses to abandon its use of known harmful features, and has instead redoubled its efforts to misrepresent, conceal, and downplay the impact of those features on young users’ mental and physical health.”
The states signed onto the lawsuit include Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
Reacting to the lawsuit, Meta said in a statement, “We’re disappointed that instead of working productively with companies across the industry to create clear, age-appropriate standards for the many apps teens use, the attorneys general have chosen this path,” Reuters reported. Hundreds of lawsuits have also been filed against Google’s YouTube and Chinese-owned ByteDance’s TikTok on behalf of children and school districts over the platforms’ addictiveness.