by Mike Capuzzo, Childrens Health Defense:
More than 40 U.S. states on Tuesday sued Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, alleging the tech giant knowingly and deliberately “misled the public about the substantial dangers of its Social Media Platforms.” Some experts praised the move, while others took issue with what they see as state control over social media.
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More than 40 U.S. states on Tuesday sued Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, alleging the tech giant knowingly and deliberately “misled the public about the substantial dangers of its Social Media Platforms.”
The 233-page complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accuses Meta of violating consumer protection laws, deceiving users about the safety of its platforms, and deliberately causing mental and physical harm to youth with its “psychologically manipulative product features” that “prioritize profit over safety.”
The lawsuit alleges that Meta “concealed the ways in which these Platforms exploit and manipulate its most vulnerable” and that the company “has ignored the sweeping damage these Platforms have caused to the mental and physical health of our nation’s youth.”
It also accuses the social media company of continuing “to engage in … deceptive and unlawful conduct in violation of state and federal law” — including violations of the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA) — by harvesting “the personal data of its youngest users,” under age 13, without parents’ permission.
“Kids and teenagers are suffering from record levels of poor mental health and social media companies like Meta are to blame,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, who joined the lawsuit with 32 other states, said in a statement.
James added:
“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 separate action, nine other attorneys general sued Meta in their states, based on similar allegations, bringing the number of states suing Meta to 41.
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