Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has been accused of misleading the public about the risks of using social media and contributing to a mental health crisis among young people.
The claims were made in a federal lawsuit announced by dozens of US states.
They say the company used addictive features to “ensnare” users while hiding the “significant dangers” of its platforms.
Meta said it was “disappointed”.
The lawsuit said Meta broke consumer protection laws by engaging in “deceptive” conduct.
It also said the company had collected data from children under the age of 13, in violation of its obligations under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.
“Social media companies, including Meta, have contributed to a national youth mental health crisis and must be held accountable,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James, one of 33 attorneys general who signed the lawsuit.
Nine other states made similar claims in their own lawsuits.
A spokesman for Meta said the company shares the attorneys general’ commitment to “providing safe, positive online experiences for teens” and has “already introduced more than 30 tools to support teens and their families”.
“We are 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 spokesperson added.
Meta and other social media companies already face hundreds of lawsuits in the US from families, teens and school districts over the impact on mental health.
This is the largest lawsuit to date.
It follows an investigation into the company’s practices in 2021 by several state prosecutors after a whistleblower, Frances Haugen, testified in the US that the company knew its products could harm children.
That Instagram is damaging young people’s mental health is denied by Meta.
“It is simply not true that this research shows that Instagram is ‘toxic’ to teenage girls,” Pratiti Raychoudhury, vice president and head of research at Meta, said at the time.
“The research actually showed that many teens we heard from felt that using Instagram helped them when they were struggling with the kinds of difficult moments and issues that teens have always faced,” Ms Raychoudhury said.
There are studies suggesting that the growth of Facebook is not associated with psychological harm.
But there is also plenty of research that shows that spending long periods of time on social media can be detrimental to young people’s mental health.
In the UK, a coroner’s inquest into the death of Molly Russell concluded that the schoolgirl died while suffering from the ‘negative effects of online content’.
The states are seeking financial damages and an end to Meta’s alleged harmful practices.
Large parts of the lawsuit are being withheld from the public. But it specifically names features such as likes, warnings and filters, which it says are “known to promote body dysmorphia in young users”. Body dysmorphia causes a person to spend a lot of time worrying about flaws in their appearance, and these perceived flaws are often unnoticeable to others.
“Meta’s design choices and practices exploit and contribute to young users’ vulnerability to addiction,” the lawsuit says.
