North Carolina joins lawsuit against Instagram, Meta over effects on kids
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein announced in Charlotte Tuesday that his office has joined a lawsuit against social media giant Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram.
The lawsuit — filed by 33 attorneys general from across the country — alleges that the company has knowingly exploited young users, collected data from them without their parents’ consent and misled the public about risks. Other attorneys general are filing lawsuits in their own states, according to Stein’s office.
“Meta doesn’t see young kids as children to be protected,” Stein, a Democrat running for governor, told The Charlotte Observer. “They see them as dollar signs to be exploited, and they have been doing just that — making money harming America’s young people.”
The lawsuit comes after about two years of investigation by the attorneys general, he said.
“It required a great deal of discovery to get documents, to review what their internal policies were, what their knowledge about the harms were, to interview a number of whistleblowers and other important witnesses,” he said. “It’s a very comprehensive investigation.”
What’s alleged?
The complaint, filed Tuesday in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges that Meta has attracted young users with addictive features.
Its business model is “based on maximizing the time that young users spend on its social media platforms,” one section of the 228-page complaint says. “Meta targets young users and incentivizes its employees to develop ways to increase the time that young users spend on its platforms. The more time young users spend on Instagram and Facebook, the more Meta earns by selling advertising targeted to those users.”
Features like an infinite scroll on Instagram, push notifications and “ephemeral” stories have kept kids hooked, the complaint says.
The apps’ algorithms push young users back to “psychologically and emotionally gripping content,” including some tied to eating disorders, violence, body image issues and bullying, it alleges.
And, the complaint says, Meta has flouted the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act by “unlawfully collecting the personal data of its youngest users without their parents’ permission.”
In an emailed statement, Meta said it shared goals with the attorneys general, adding that the company is “disappointed” the lawsuit was filed.
“We share the attorneys general’s commitment to providing teens with safe, positive experiences online, and have already introduced over 30 tools to support teens and their families,” a company spokesperson wrote. “We’re disappointed that instead of working productively with companies across the industry to create clear, age-appropriate standards for the many apps teens use, the attorneys general have chosen this path.”
What could change
The attorneys general are asking the court for injunctive and monetary relief.
“We want changes made to the apps so that they’re not addictive, and they don’t harm young people across the country,” Stein told The Observer. “We want much more transparency to parents about how their children are using the platform, and what risks there are to that use. We want civil penalties to punish Meta for its indifference, and to deter it and other companies from doing this in the future.”
Stein spelled out some long-term goals as well.
“In terms of where I would like this country to be in five years, is for there to be uniform rules that protect young people, that apply to all social media platforms,” he said.
Those could be nationwide regulations on what data social media companies are allowed to collect and how they are allowed to operate, he said.
Stein and other attorneys general are still investigating TikTok for similar allegations, according to a news release. States “have pushed for more documents and information after TikTok failed to adequately respond to their initial discovery requests,” the release said.
This story was originally published October 24, 2023 at 3:16 PM with the headline "North Carolina joins lawsuit against Instagram, Meta over effects on kids."
CORRECTION: This article has been updated to clarify the number of attorneys general suing Meta, and in which courts they are suing.