Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, must face lawsuits filed by several states accusing the tech conglomerate of pushing teenagers towards social media addiction in the United States (US), the court has ruled.
The ruling, which came Wednesday from a California court, crushed Meta’s attempts to get the lawsuits dismissed. The two cases, with one being backed by over 30 states, became the centre of attention when they were filed in October last year.
The allegations ranged from the tech mammoth’s deployment of “addictive” and “harmful” algorithms to breaching child privacy laws by collecting data on underage users without parental consent.
“Meta needs to be held accountable for the very real harm it has inflicted on children here in California and across the country,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement as carried by Reuters.
Complainants and lawyers have hailed the ruling as “a significant victory for young people nationwide who have been negatively impacted by addictive and harmful social media platforms”.
Meta, on the other hand, has expressed disagreement with the ruling, highlighting the measures the company has taken to ensure child safety and emotional well-being of younger users.
In September 2024, Instagram launched “Teen Accounts” with enhanced protections and parental controls, but that seems to have done little to placate the states. The lawsuits are backed by 33 states, including New York, California, and Florida.
The cases were brought under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), with the plaintiffs accusing Meta of fuelling a “youth mental health crisis” across the US.
One of the lawsuit claims “Meta has harnessed powerful and unprecedented technologies to entice, engage, and ultimately ensnare youth and teens,” and that the company’s motive is “profit” and “maximizing financial gains”.
The complaint adds that Meta has repeatedly misled people about the dangers of its social media platforms and further accuses it of exploiting and manipulating teenagers and children, and concealing such practices.
The ruling is not final on the merits of the cases brought against Meta; however, it sets the stage for what could be a highly publicised trial of the billion-dollar tech industry player.
Meta has already accrued more than a billion dollars in fines over the last two years in Europe from the Irish regulator — the Data Protection Commission (DPC) — for violations including breaches of data protection, failure to ensure child privacy, among others. The company has been facing an intense regulatory scrutiny for its business practices both in the US and European Union (EU).
