41 States Sue Meta For Alleged Manipulation Of Young Users, COPPA Noncompliance

Social media giant Meta is facing lawsuits from 42 states and districts alleging that the company’s Facebook and Instagram platforms negatively impact the mental health of young users and knowingly developing features that make both platforms more addictive to children using them.

A collection of 33 states jointly filed suit in federal court in the Northern District of California, with New York, California, Georgia and Colorado among the plaintiffs. An additional eight states and the District of Columbia filed separate lawsuits in various other courts.

The collection of complaints focuses keenly on what the wide swathe of attorneys general assert is a pointed practice by Meta to manipulate young people into engaging with its apps to the detriment of their mental health.

Among the allegations in the federal filing is that Meta “exploited young users” by developing a business model “focused on maximizing young users’ time” on Facebook and Instagram and “misleading the public about the safety” of “harmful and psychologically manipulative platform features.” It further accuses the company of publishing misleading reports about the rates of “user harm” and “refusing to address those harms while continuing to conceal and downplay its platforms’ adverse effects.”

The legal filings come after a 2021 bipartisan investigation into claims that Meta violated laws by promoting its social media platforms to young people. That investigation followed a Wall Street Journal report on internal information provided by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen that showed a link between Instagram use and a rise in body image issues in teen girls.

“Our bipartisan investigation has arrived at a solemn conclusion: Meta has been harming our children and teens, cultivating addiction to boost corporate profits,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta told the Washington Post in a statement.

The complaints also focus on allegations that Meta isn’t complying with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA. The federal filing claims that Meta “possesses actual knowledge” of children using both Instagram and Facebook despite both platforms not allowing users under the age of 13 to create accounts and collect personal information on them without obtaining parental consent to do so. It further accuses Meta of not obtaining verifiable parental consent before collecting the user data of users under the age of 13, which would be in direct violation of COPPA if true.

“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 told the Associated Press 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.”

The deluge of lawsuits adds to the social media company’s current legal battles. Meta still faces an antitrust lawsuit for the Federal Trade Commission, and the European Union slapped the company with a $1.3 billion fine over its handling of European users’ private data in May of this year.

Meta responded to the lawsuits in a statement, saying the company 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. 

“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.”