Meta designed platforms to get children addicted, court documents allege

[CharlieH]

 

Instagram and Facebook parent company also knowingly allowed underage users to hold accounts, unsealed legal complaint says

 

Instagram and Facebook parent company Meta purposefully engineered its platforms to addict children and knowingly allowed underage users to hold accounts, according to a newly unsealed legal complaint.

The complaint is a key part of a lawsuit filed against Meta by the attorneys general of 33 states in late October and was originally redacted. It alleges the social media company knew – but never disclosed – it had received millions of complaints about underage users on Instagram but only disabled a fraction of those accounts. The large number of underage users was an “open secret” at the company, the suit alleges, citing internal company documents.

In one example, the lawsuit cites an internal email thread in which employees discuss why a 12-year-old girl’s four accounts were not deleted following complaints from the girl’s mother stating her daughter was 12 years old and requesting the accounts to be taken down. The employees concluded that “the accounts were ignored” in part because representatives of Meta “couldn’t tell for sure the user was underage”.

The complaint said that in 2021, Meta received over 402,000 reports of under-13 users on Instagram but that 164,000 – far fewer than half of the reported accounts – were “disabled for potentially being under the age of 13” that year. The complaint noted that at times Meta has a backlog of up to 2.5m accounts of younger children awaiting action.

The complaint alleges this and other incidents violate the Children’s Online Privacy and Protection Act, which requires that social media companies provide notice and get parental consent before collecting data from children.

 

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[Emdog]

In my best valley girl speak "Well, yeah, duh, for sure..." On first glance at headline, I thought it read "Meth designed platforms to get children addicted"

I would rather be in a "shooting gallery" full of heroin addicts than a roomful of teens swiping about on social media... more chance of having real social contact. Easier to kick that junky habit too