More than forty American states launched legal proceedings against Meta (Facebook, Instagram) this Tuesday, October 24, accusing its applications of “harming the mental and physical health of young people”.
This joint and transpartisan complaint – although certain States preferred to launch procedures on their own – is the culmination of two years of investigations into the way in which Mark Zuckerberg’s social networks would put in place addiction mechanisms.
In 2021, a Meta engineer, Frances Haugen, leaked more than 20,000 pages of internal documents to demonstrate that the group prioritized profits over security. These pointed to abuses in terms of moderation, but also a lack of responsiveness to dangers identified regarding the mental health of its youngest users. Some states such as Utah and Arkansas adopted laws at the start of the year to force platforms to impose parental consent on minors.