{"id":998,"date":"2023-12-20T06:07:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-20T06:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/?p=998"},"modified":"2023-12-28T04:12:22","modified_gmt":"2023-12-28T04:12:22","slug":"over-40-us-states-sue-meta-over-childrens-addiction-online-privacy-and-mental-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/over-40-us-states-sue-meta-over-childrens-addiction-online-privacy-and-mental-health\/","title":{"rendered":"Over 40 US States sue Meta over children\u2019s addiction, online privacy and mental health"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(quote)

\n\nDozens of U.S. states, including California and New York, are suing Meta Platforms Inc. for harming young people\u2019s mental health and contributing the youth mental health crisis by knowingly and deliberately designing features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children to its platforms.<\/a>
\nA lawsuit filed by 33 states in federal court in California, claims that Meta routinely collects data on children under 13 without their parents\u2019 consent, in violation of federal law. In addition, nine attorneys general are filing lawsuits in their respective states, bringing the total number of states taking action to 41 and Washington, D.C.

\n\n\u201cMeta has harnessed powerful and unprecedented technologies to entice, engage, and ultimately ensnare youth and teens. Its motive is profit, and in seeking to maximize its financial gains, Meta has repeatedly misled the public about the substantial dangers of its social media platforms,\u201d the complaint says. \u201cIt has concealed the ways in which these platforms exploit and manipulate its most vulnerable consumers: teenagers and children.\u201d

\n\nThe 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\u2019s own research that found that the company knew about the harms Instagram can cause teenagers \u2014 especially teen girls \u2014 when it comes to mental health and body image issues. One internal study cited 13.5 percent of teen girls saying Instagram makes thoughts of suicide worse and 17 percent of teen girls saying it makes eating disorders worse. \u201cMeta has been harming our children and teens, cultivating addiction to boost corporate profits,\u201d said California Attorney General Rob Bonta. \u201cWith today\u2019s lawsuit, we are drawing the line.\u201d

\n\nTo comply with federal regulation, social media companies ban kids under 13 from signing up to their platforms \u2014 but children have been shown to easily get around the bans, both with and without their parents\u2019 consent, and many younger kids have social media accounts. The states\u2019 complaint says Meta knowingly violated this law, the Children\u2019s Online Privacy Protection Act, by collecting data on children without informing and getting permission from their parents.

\n\nOther measures social platforms have taken to address concerns about children\u2019s mental health are also easily circumvented. For instance, TikTok recently introduced a default 60-minute time limit for users under 18. But once the limit is reached, minors can simply enter a passcode to keep watching. TikTok, Snapchat and other social platforms that have also been blamed for contributing to the youth mental health crisis are not part of Tuesday\u2019s lawsuit.

\n\nMeta has \u2018threatened to delete\u2019 important data in case alleging underage users were exposed to predators: AG<\/a>
New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez said in the Monday filing that Meta has \u201cdisabled\u201d several test accounts that investigators used to probe the popular apps.

\n\nMeta slapped with $600M lawsuit from Spanish media outlets over digital privacy<\/a>
\nA group representing more than 80 media outlets in Spain slapped Meta with a $600 million lawsuit Monday alleging the Facebook parent has broken European data privacy laws.

\n\n(unquote)

\n\nImage courtesy PBS<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(quote) Dozens of U.S. states, including California and New York, are suing Meta Platforms Inc. for harming young people\u2019s mental health and contributing the youth mental health crisis by knowingly and deliberately designing features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children to its platforms. A lawsuit filed by 33 statesRead More →<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7,8,11,12],"tags":[21,57,26,27,59,40,56,24,18,35,52,128,41,32],"class_list":["entry","author-wcp-observer","post-998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-figures-and-facts","category-health-and-lifestyle","category-life-nature-society","category-science-and-technology","category-us-and-world","tag-business","tag-children","tag-facts","tag-figures","tag-health","tag-internet","tag-kids","tag-law","tag-life","tag-news","tag-people","tag-social-media","tag-society","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}