A group of 33 states including California, New York, Arizona and Indiana are suing Meta Platforms Inc. for harming young people’s mental health and contributing the youth mental health crisis by knowingly designing features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children to the platforms.
This is going absolutely nowhere, I guarantee it. Meta is a business, so yes, they intentionally seek to increase engagement, this isn’t illegal (see every other industry with children as a demographic).
“Manipulative features” is incredibly subjective and hard to prove. “Lowering self-esteem” is also very, very difficult to prove, especially since an Oxford study came out recently showing no evidence linking Facebook adoption and negative well-being. On top of that, proving Meta did this all intentionally for profit is basically impossible, unless they have some sort of crazy smoking gun that I’m sure they don’t have, otherwise they’d be approaching this from another angle.
I know everyone around here wants to see big social media fall, but this ain’t it. At most they’ll settle for a small undisclosed amount, allowing the AG a “show of force” and Meta to avoid anything public.
Fully agree, this is going nowhere
My cash settlement from last time a state sued Meta says otherwise.
Pro tip folks: if your state is one of the ones brining this suit, sign up for the class action settlement. Cash is nice. You can spend it on things. I liked my cash from a previous Meta settlement.
Meta can apparently break the law all day long, but they do pay cash in settlement when they get caught red handed.