New lawsuit alleges Instagram and Facebook are harmful to kids' mental health.Photo:Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty
Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty
A bipartisan group of attorneys general from 41 states and the District of Columbia are suing Instagram and Facebook’s parent company,Meta, charging that the social networks are deliberately addictive — and knowingly harming children’smental health.
“Meta has harnessed powerful and unprecedented technologies to entice, engage, and ultimately ensnare youth and teens,” the complaint, filed Tuesday from 33 states in an Oakland, Calif., federal court, said, according toReuters.
Eight states, including Washington D.C., filed separately,The Washington Postreported.
With features like infinite scroll and notifications, sites like Instagram are deliberately designed to keep young people engaged — and coming back for more, the AGs charge in their lawsuit,CNBCsays.
Meta’s “motive is profit,” alleges the lawsuit, which seeks civil penalties, among other consequences, forMark Zuckerberg’s behemoth social media company.
Meta’s California headquarters.Justin Sullivan/Getty
Justin Sullivan/Getty
This past May, United States Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued alandmark advisoryregarding the impact of social media, saying that it can “have a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents.”
“In early adolescence, when identities and sense of self-worth are forming, brain development is especially susceptible to social pressures, peer opinions and peer comparison,” the advisory said. “Our children have become unknowing participants in a decades-long experiment.”
According to another lawsuit in March, Meta’s product teams were actively trying to increase the number of times people accessed their platforms. In that filing, theLos Angeles Timesreported that one Meta employee wrote “No one wakes up thinking they want to maximize the number of times they open Instagram that day…But that’s exactly what our product teams are trying to do.”
The March lawsuit also claimed that Meta chief Zuckerberg was personally warned about social media’s negative impacts on children.
Instagram and Facebook are harmful to kids' mental health, new lawsuit says.Getty
Getty
While bothFacebookandInstagram’s terms of service dictate that someone must be at least 13 years old before signing up for an account, the new lawsuit also alleges that Meta collected personal data from children under 13 without parental consent, which violates the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), CNBC reports.
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source: people.com
