Meta rejects accusations of addictive young people on social networks

O trial, initiated on Tuesday in the federal court of Oakland in the state of California (southwest), represents the biggest legal challenge against the Meta for attracting underage users, promoting additive behaviors and causing emotional and physical damage – and, in the most serious cases, death.

A jury will decide whether state attorneys-general have proved their thesis that technology has designed applications to “addict users, retain them as long as possible, collect their data and hide the truth from the public,” as U.S. Attorney-General Megan O’Neill said in her opening statements.

California, Colorado (southwest), Kentucky (southeast) and New Jersey (northeast) sued the Meta in 2023 for privacy and child security, with 25 other states coming to trial later. The company also faces lawsuits in state courts, including one in Tennessee (southeast).

The process accuses the technology of contributing to the mental health crisis of young people by conceiving, knowingly and deliberately, functionalities that addictive children on social networks and by hiding these damages from the public.

The prosecution further argues that the Meta routinely collects data from children under 13 without parental consent, in violation of federal law.

Meta’s lawyer, Paul Schmidt, stated “discuss categorically” the accusations and asked the jury of eight people to keep an “open mind”.

Schmidt defended the work that technology has done to improve the well-being of 20% of adolescents who, according to a survey by the company itself, say they feel worse when using Instagram.

The defender also highlighted efforts to block users under 13 years of age, stating that in the last three months, the company eliminated 600,000 accounts.

The jury's conclusions will serve as the basis for the final decision of Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, a magistrate who has already presided over other complex lawsuits against Big Tech, such as actions against Apple and OpenAI.

Megan O’Neill assured that the technology founded by Mark Zuckerberg “hidden the truth,” saying that “when it came time to choose between the safety of children or profits, time and again gained profits.”.

O’Neill stressed that the Meta deeply studied the vulnerabilities of the infantile brain – such as the constant desire for rewards and sensitivity to social responses – to adapt the platforms, to the point of calling an internal study “‘The youngest are the best’”.

Additionally, he accused the company of negligence by deactivating minor accounts on Facebook while keeping the associated accounts intact on Instagram.

On the first day of hearings, he testified Arturo Béjar, former Facebook engineering director and expert in combating harassment and virtual humiliation, who reported having alerted high Meta executives to the avoidable damage that users suffered due to Instagram design.

Béjar stressed that, unlike the Goal’s public discourse, the internal technical proposals to combat harmful content, such as those associated with eating disorders, were successively reduced to “small insignificances without real impact”.

At a press conference after the session, California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, reiterated that the goal is to modify Meta’s practices so that the company “stop lying to the public.”.

Bonta predicted compensation that could reach astronomical values. The Meta has estimated a potential risk of up to 1.4 billion dollars (EUR 1.2 billion) in civil sanctions and return of illicit profits.

The prosecutors also stressed that the dispute is part of a broader judicial movement targeting other technological giants such as Google (the YouTube owner), TikTok and Snapchat.

Outside the court, parents of victims had a band, meters long, with the names of dozens of young people who allegedly lost their lives due to social networks, demanding accountability.

The trial is expected to last for about six weeks, with statements being made by Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram's maximum manager, Adam Mosseri.