By BARBARA ORTUTAY AP Technology Writer, and staff
COLUMBUS – Ohio and 32 other states are suing Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, for harming young people’s mental health and contributing the youth mental health crisis by knowingly designing features that addict children to the platforms.
Additionally, the lawsuit claims that the company concealed the severity of the psychological harm they caused, including addiction to the platforms, which could, and in some cases did, result in physical harm, Ohio Attorney general Dave Yost said.
“Meta just didn’t care about what the damage was of their platform, their algorithms, to our kids and they lied about it. We’re going to hold them accountable,” Yost said.
The federal lawsuit filed in California’s Northern District also claims that Meta routinely collects data on children under 13 without their parents’ consent, in violation of the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.
Eight other attorneys general made similar allegations in their own states and Florida is filing its own federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.
The suits seek financial damages and restitution and an end to Meta’s practices that are in violation of the law.
According to the lawsuit, Meta’s platform algorithms push users into descending “rabbit holes” with the objective of keeping users on the platform for long periods, and allegedly use features such as infinite scroll and near-constant alerts in a concerted effort to hold young users’ attention. Such tactics entice teens and tweens to continually return to the platforms, the lawsuit states.
“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,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James in a statement.
The attorneys general also allege that the platforms offered harmful content, including material associated with eating disorders, violence, negative self-perception and body-image issues, and bullying to young users, while Meta publicly advertised their platforms as safe for young users, Yost said.
“Given that children, when they’re on these platforms, become vulnerable to cyberbullying and online predators, Meta has added insult to injury, further injuring our children,” Yost said.
In a statement, Meta said it shares “the attorneys general’s commitment to providing teens with safe, positive experiences online, and have already introduced over 30 tools to support teens and their families.”
The broad-ranging suit is the result of an investigation led by a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general from California, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee, and Vermont and follows damning newspaper reports, first by The Wall Street Journal in the fall of 2021, based on the Meta’s own research that found that the company knew about the harms Instagram can cause teenagers, especially teen girls, when it comes to mental health and body image issues. One internal study cited 13.5% of teen girls saying Instagram makes thoughts of suicide worse and 17% of teen girls saying it makes eating disorders worse.
The use of social media among teens is nearly universal in the U.S. and many other parts of the world. Almost all teens ages 13 to 17 in the U.S. report using a social media platform, with about a third saying they use social media “almost constantly,” according to the Pew Research Center.
To comply with federal regulation, social media companies ban kids under 13 from signing up to their platforms — but children have been shown to easily get around the bans, both with and without their parents’ consent, and many younger kids have social media accounts.
In May, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy called on tech companies, parents and caregivers to take “immediate action to protect kids now” from the harms of social media.