"Instagram, Excessive Addiction"... 41 US States Sue Meta

"Addiction Driven by Algorithm and Infinite Scroll Features"
Whistleblower Says "Meta Prioritizes Profit Over People"

Meta Platforms (Meta), which operates social media (SNS) platforms Facebook and Instagram, has been sued by 41 out of the 50 U.S. state governments.

[Image source=Pixabay]

On the 24th (local time), 33 state governments including California and Colorado filed a lawsuit in the Northern District Court of California, claiming that Facebook and Instagram's excessive addictiveness harms the mental health of children and teenagers.

Washington D.C. and eight other states also filed lawsuits in their respective federal courts with the same intent.

They stated, "Meta used powerful and unprecedented technology to attract and engage children and adolescents, ultimately trapping them," and criticized, "Meta's motive is profit, and it has repeatedly misled the public about the significant risks of its SNS platforms to maximize monetary gains."

They added, "It concealed the ways in which it harms the most vulnerable consumers of these platforms, children and teenagers."

Letitia James, New York Attorney General, said in a statement, "Children and teenagers are suffering from record levels of mental health deterioration," and "Meta deliberately designed manipulative features that make kids addicted to the platforms and lower their self-esteem, profiting from their suffering."

The states claimed in the lawsuit that Meta designed its SNS platforms to keep minors on them longer and encourage repeated use.

To this end, they pointed out that these SNS platforms utilized features such as algorithms, notification settings, and 'infinite scroll' that allows users to view feeds without turning pages.

They also noted that functions like 'Likes' and photo filters that allow comparison with others negatively affect teenagers' mental health or cause physical symptoms.

The state governments also accused Meta of violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act by collecting personal information from users under 13 years old without parental consent.

[Image source=Pixabay]

This lawsuit was filed two years after Frances Haugen, a former Facebook senior product manager and Meta whistleblower, exposed the dangers of Facebook.

In 2021, Haugen revealed internal documents showing the dark side of Facebook, stating, "Facebook products harm children, fuel division, and weaken democracy."

At a congressional hearing in October of the same year, she criticized, "Facebook executives know how to make Facebook and Instagram safer, but they will not take necessary changes because they prioritize astronomical profits over people."

Meanwhile, this is not the first time Meta has faced a wave of lawsuits.

In December 2020, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 48 state governments filed an antitrust lawsuit, accusing Facebook at the time of acquiring promising small competitors like Instagram and WhatsApp to eliminate competition.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.