California Leads Coalition Suing Meta Over Alleged Harms Caused To Kids And Teens

California has led a coalition of attorneys general in filing a lawsuit against Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Meta, alleging the company violated federal and state laws.

In the federal lawsuit filed on Tuesday, the 33 state attorneys said the social media company designed features “to entice, engage, and ultimately ensnare youth and teens” harming the mental and physical health of young people. Eight other states filed a similar action against Meta in their respective state courts.

The states are seeking to stop Meta from using features they allege are designed to get young people addicted to the apps as well as stop marketing Instagram and Facebook to children and youth. Each state is seeking separate damages.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the lawsuit seeks to change “the practices that have led to the known harm and moving forward with healthier practices and protocols on the platform.”

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In a statement, a spokesperson for Meta said the company shares Bonta'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,” the spokesperson added.

Bonta said their investigation found that Meta has misled its users and is putting children in harm’s way. He cited growing evidence that social media has a negatively affects children, including with depression, anxiety and body image issues.

Meta, he said, has disregarded the dangers of social media and instead lied about the harmful effects to users and to parents.

“We know Meta had internal discussions about the negative impact of the like button, but decided to keep it anyway,” he said. “We know Meta has internal documents that include studies and reports discussing the harmful effects of Meta's products and the mental health problems they can cause young users.”

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, who joined Bonta in filing the federal lawsuit, said the coalition of attorney generals began their investigations into Meta in 2021. At the time, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen released thousands of documents to the Wall Street Journal and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The documents, Weiser said, revealed that Meta knew that young people should not have been on Facebook and Instagram.

Facebook whistleblower weighs in

Speaking to LAist, Haugen, who recently founded the nonprofit Beyond the Screen to fight social media harms, called the lawsuit a “historic moment.”

“I am incredibly impressed that the attorney generals from I think it's like 41 or 42 states have now come together across both the larger lawsuit with the 33 states and the eight individual complaints to say, 'Hey, enough is enough,'” she said. “We know that you hid this information from the public, that you misconstrued that these products were safe for kids when they weren't.”

When Haugen released the documents, she said her intention was to no longer feel “culpable” for the “secrets that I had been forced to carry at Facebook.”

“I worked on misinformation, particularly with very fragile communities, you know, we're talking about people in African countries, in South America, in Southeast Asia, where people are becoming literate to use social media,” she said. “Misinformation doesn't make Thanksgiving dinner unpleasant, it leads to ethnic violence.”

Haugen said she didn’t imagine her disclosure would lead to a lawsuit of this magnitude.

“I am so excited and so thrilled that we're seeing such a unified response,” she said.