Mega lawsuit against Meta in the US begins: does the company deliberately addict young people?
Today in California, a major lawsuit involving nearly thirty US states against Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, begins. According to the states, the tech company deliberately addicts young people to these social media platforms and uses tactics to keep them spending as much time as possible on the platforms.
By doing so, Meta has contributed to a deterioration in the mental and physical health of young people and is violating the law, the states claim.
They also say that Meta collects data from children under 13 on the platforms, which is prohibited by law in the US. The case was filed in 2023 and is led by California, Kentucky, Colorado, and New Jersey.
'Not only morally reprehensible'
The states want to force Meta to change the addictive techniques behind the platforms and are also demanding damages that could amount to approximately 1.2 trillion (1,200,000,000,000) euros. The case is expected to last about six to eight weeks. Among others, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg will be heard in court, as well as other executives and former employees of the company.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta says the company "designed Facebook and Instagram so that children stay on the platforms longer and longer, to the point of physical and mental harm." He calls it "not only morally reprehensible but also illegal to exploit our most vulnerable residents to increase corporate profits."
Jennifer Davenport, his colleague from New Jersey, says her state has spent thousands of hours since 2021 investigating Meta's "unlawful behavior." "We hope to demonstrate that Meta endangered the mental health of an entire generation of children with addictive features, which the company knew would have these terrible consequences."
Deliberately made addicted?
Meta says it has done a lot to protect teenagers on the platforms and says it can prove this in court. According to the company, it has spoken with parents, collaborated with experts and the police, and conducted "in-depth research" to understand the problems.
Earlier, Meta CEO Zuckerberg claimed that his company no longer builds apps designed to keep people looking at their screens as long as possible. He made this statement in another ongoing civil case against social media companies, in which more than 1,600 plaintiffs claim that companies like Meta and YouTube deliberately addict users.
Other lawsuits
The case filed by the states against Meta is separate from thousands of other lawsuits currently pending against the company.
Cases against Meta often end in fines for the tech company. For example, a court in the US state of New Mexico ruled this month that the company is responsible for the damage to children's mental health. Meta must make its platforms safer for young people and was fined more than half a billion dollars.
In March, Meta, like Google (the parent company of YouTube), was held liable by a jury in Los Angeles for a woman's social media addiction. She claimed that she became addicted to social media as a child, which severely worsened her mental health.
The jury ruled that the companies should have warned users about the dangers of these social media platforms and imposed a fine of 3 million dollars, which must largely be paid by Meta.