Forty One States Have SUED Facebook After They….

The number of states suing Meta, formerly Facebook, has increased to 41, with the addition of the District of Columbia.

The claims claim that Meta collected and used data belonging to minors without getting permission from their parents.

The complaints also claim that Meta’s addictive and deceptive activities have harmed children and teens.

The Associated Press speaks more about the lawsuits:

“Kids and teenagers are suffering from record levels of poor mental health and social media companies like Meta are to blame,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James in a statement. “Meta has profited from children’s pain by intentionally designing its platforms with manipulative features that make children addicted to their platforms while lowering their self-esteem.

In a statement, Meta said it shares “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.”

“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,” the company added.

The broad-ranging federal suit is the result of an investigation led by a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general from California, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee, and Vermont. It follows damning newspaper reports, first by The Wall Street Journal in the fall of 2021, based on the Meta’s own research that found that the company knew about the harms Instagram can cause teenagers — especially teen girls — when it comes to mental health and body image issues. One internal study cited 13.5% of teen girls saying Instagram makes thoughts of suicide worse and 17% of teen girls saying it makes eating disorders worse.

The irreversible damage done by Meta and other social media firms to our youth severely disturbs me.

There is an epidemic of mental disease among the youth being raised on these sites.

Filing a lawsuit is a positive move.

The destructive influence of media corporations on our youth must be addressed.

Check out what one of the attorneys suing Meta has to say:

CNBC reported more on this story:

It’s not the first time a broad coalition of state attorneys general have teamed up to go after Meta. In 2020, 48 states and territories sued the company on antitrust grounds, alongside a separate complaint from the Federal Trade Commission.

Meta designed its Facebook and Instagram products to keep young users on them for longer and repeatedly coming back, the attorneys general allege. According to the federal complaint, Meta did this via the design of its algorithms, copious alerts, notifications and so-called infinite scroll through platform feeds. The company also includes features that the AGs allege negatively impact teens’ mental health through social comparison or promoting body dysmorphia, such as “likes” or photo filters.

The federal suit also accuses Meta of violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, by collecting personal data on users under 13 without parental consent.

Meta always speaks about the parental safety features they implement to help combat the harmful effects on children.

However, here’s the catch:

I’m willing to guess that many parents are unaware of the potential dangers posed by children’s use of social media.

That’s not anyone’s fault, either.

It will take some time before we have a complete understanding of the impact of social media, which is still a relatively young phenomenon.

The judicial system and the IT industry will need to work tirelessly for years to tackle this complicated issue.

 

Sassy Liberty

Sassy Liberty is a political writer for the better part of a decade. She has been vocal for years on social media concerning the communist agenda that has infiltrated our country. She is an advocate for medical freedom, homeschooling, and defunding the woke culture. Do you want to stop the war on kids and defund the commie agenda? msha.ke/danielledeperi

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