Dozens of States Sue Meta Claiming Social Media Addiction Harms Children’s Mental Health Transcript

More than 40 states plus the District of Columbia have sued Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, accusing the tech giant of building addictive features into its popular social media platforms that contribute to a youth mental health crisis. Stephanie Sy looks into what is behind the lawsuits.

Amna, 33 states filed a federal lawsuit in Northern California today, it claims Meta is in violation of consumer protection laws and children’s online privacy laws. The District of Columbia and eight other states filed a separate lawsuit. In the larger 233 page suit, the states say Meta uses quote, “powerful and unprecedented technologies to entice, engage, and ultimately ensnare young people.” Phil Weiser is the attorney general for Colorado and helped lead the suit and joins us now. Mr. Weiser, thanks for joining the NewsHour. So it’s a bipartisan group of attorneys general from states ranging from West Virginia to Washington suing Meta now. What led to this point and why is the lawsuit being filed now?

In the summer of 2021, a number of state attorneys general we’re focusing on what we saw as declining youth mental health and a connection to social media platforms. They were addictive. They took people down dark holes and we thought there could be a connection here. After the Francis Haugen whistleblowing testimony, the documents she released, our work accelerated, and for the last two years, intensively, collaboratively, we’ve put together this complaint. We see a real problem. Meta has lied to people, they’ve been deceiving people about their platform. They’ve been marketing to people under 13 and they’ve failed to protect young people. That’s why we’re taking this important action.

So just to remind viewers, Meta owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. You’re also alleging that these apps are creating addictions comparable to other public health threats to teens such as smoking. In what specific ways are they doing that?

The features designed for these apps, the infinite scroll feature for one example, are done with a awareness that they drive addictive behavior, that there are no guardrails, that young people aren’t self-regulating and that they’re adopting these technologies to their detriment. All the while their public statements are, “These platforms are safe. Young people have nothing to worry about.” That’s not right. We know young people are losing sleep, are finding their mental health really dissent, sometimes not just eating disorders but into self-harm, even suicide. They need to take responsibility for the platform. We need to better protect young people.

Meta did turn down our interview request, but in a statement says, it is disappointed by these lawsuits and argues it has introduced dozens of tools to make minors’ accounts safer. I want to show our viewers some of these tools. Here is a screen that shows different examples of how a parent can monitor their child’s Instagram account. They can see time spent on the app. They can also click a button to set a limit on time spent on the app. The middle screen shows a notification for something their child reported to the app. And the last screen shows who is following them on the app. Meta has also introduced these full screen reminders for kids to take a break from screen time when it gets late or when they’ve been scrolling for too long. Attorney General Weiser, these are just a few examples of tools parents have at their disposal. What else are you asking of Meta?

Let me start with a threshold concern related to the Federal Child Online Privacy Protection Act. Meta under federal law cannot and should not be marketing to young people, collecting data without parents’ awareness or consent. They’re doing just that. Meta has identified young people, 11, 12 year olds as an untapped and valuable audience and engaged in behavior in violation of federal law. We are bringing this federal action under that law. Moreover, they have said at Meta, “Don’t worry, there’s no harm from the platform,” but their internal research tells us otherwise. That tells us that they know young people are losing sleep, are facing addictive behavior that takes them down dark holes. These tools can, and in some cases may even be valuable, but in the mainstream and in the overwhelming cases that we know about, young people are hurting and this platform is responsible for that harm. They need to do more.

I have a preteen, and I have to ask this. Why just target Meta and not other popular platforms that teens and preteens are using like YouTube, TikTok, and Snapchat? Why target this one company?

This is an industry-wide concern. Our concerns are broad. We have publicly announced that we are closely investigating TikTok’s behavior and ultimately we need to make sure that we’re protecting kids wherever they are engaged online. This is our starting place. This lawsuit against Meta, the statements made by the whistleblower, the internal awareness of the company tell us a very simple message. They knew that their platform was harming young people and yet they failed to take the actions to protect young people because it could compromise how much money they’re making on their platform. We as a bipartisan group of AGs in this lawsuit are clear, you cannot put money over the health of our young people. I am a parent of two teens and for me this is personal. We know young people are hurting. We need to protect them. That’s why you’ve got so much state AG engagement on this matter.

Attorney General Phil Weiser of Colorado, thanks so much for joining us.

Thank you.