A bipartisan group of attorneys general from 41 states and the District of Columbia is suing Instagram and Facebook’s parent company, Meta, alleging that social media is intentionally addictive — and knowingly harms children’s mental health.
“The target used powerful and unprecedented technologies to attract, engage and ultimately ensnare youth and teenagers,” according to the lawsuit filed by 33 states in federal court in Oakland, California on Tuesday, Reuters reports.
Eight states, including Washington DC, filed separately, The Washington Post reported.
With features like infinite scrolling and notifications, sites like Instagram are deliberately designed to keep young people engaged — and coming back for more, the AGs claim in their lawsuit, CNBC says.
Meta’s “motive is profit,” according to the lawsuit, which seeks civil penalties, among other consequences, for Mark Zuckerberg’s behemoth social media company.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(791x211:793x213)/instagram-lawsuit-102423-2-c42afec1a74c49c89d8b8483d47f6d23.jpg)
Meta’s headquarters in California.
Justin Sullivan/Getty
Last May, US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued a landmark advisory on the impact of social media, saying it can “have a high risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents.”
“During early adolescence, when identities and sense of self-worth are being formed, brain development is particularly sensitive to social pressures, peer opinions, and peer comparison,” the advisory states. “Our children have become unwitting participants in a decades-long experiment.”
All children ages 8 and older should be screened for anxiety, a US task force suggests
According to another lawsuit in March, Meta’s product teams actively tried to increase the number of people accessing their platforms. In that submission, Los Angeles Times reported that one Meta employee wrote: “Nobody wakes up thinking they want to maximize the number of Instagram opens that day…But that’s exactly what our product teams are trying to do.”
The March lawsuit also claimed that CEO Meta Zuckerberg was personally warned about the negative effects of social media on children.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(787x334:789x336)/instagram-lawsuit-102423-1-fd2056b2c5aa475a9e9d615b95c02344.jpg)
Instagram and Facebook are harmful to children’s mental health, new lawsuit says.
Getty
While both Facebook and Instagram’s terms of service require that someone be at least 13 years old before registering for an account, the new lawsuit also alleges that Meta collected personal information from children under 13 without parental consent, in violation of the Privacy Act Children on the Internet Act (COPPA), reports CNBC.
Facebook pauses work on a children’s version of Instagram after reports of the app’s ‘toxic’ effect on teenagers
Meta did not respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment — and has yet to publicly comment on the lawsuit. However, in March a spokesman said: “We have actually increased funding, which shows the over 30 tools we offer to support teenagers and families,” the spokesman said.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education