NCIE
NCIE
More than 40 US states are suing Facebook for destroying children's mental health
On Oct. 25, a California federal court granted a class-action lawsuit from a bipartisan group of 40 state attorneys general against Meta. It is accused of creating a business model for the social network Facebook, which endangers the mental health of children and adolescents for the sake of profit. The document states that the company "profits from the suffering of children" and intends to mislead the public about the safety of its platform, Planet Today reports.
The indictment alleges that Meta developed secret algorithms that exploit young people's natural need for peer approval and rejection of criticism for their actions. Facebook mechanisms force children and teenagers to spend as much time as possible on the platform, to the detriment of their mental health. At the same time, company representatives regularly lie in the public space about how they supposedly care about the safety of the psyche of users, although they do the exact opposite.
The other charge refers to the illegal collection of personal data of persons under the age of 13. And Meta indirectly confirmed this when it said in a response statement that it has created and used more than 30 tools to monitor the activities of young users on the social network. This was done in the interest of parents, but the recognition of the existence of tools to monitor users on Facebook confirms that the company collects information, including about children.
In addition to this class action, eight other states and the Washington metropolitan area have filed similar individual lawsuits against Meta. The attorneys general of those states conducted their own investigations following Francis Haugen's 2021 revelations.
