A minor from New York on Monday filed a lawsuit seeking class-action status against Meta, alleging the social media giant sought to keep teens hooked on Instagram while knowingly exposing them to harmful content. 

The lawsuit, filed in the Northern District of California, argues that Meta implemented features its leaders knew would make Instagram addicting for teens, such as displaying counts of how many “likes” posts receive, even as internal evidence grew that the service could harm their mental health. 

The 13-year-old girl is seeking US$5 billion in damages, to be shared among eligible Instagram users if the suit is certified as a class action. 

Court filings claim the teen suffered from anxiety, depression and lower grades as a result of her Instagram usage. 

Meta should “stop manipulating children in ways that are harmful to them”, said lawyer David Boies, who is representing the minor for the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner, along with firms Labaton Keller Sucharow and Milberg Coleman Bryson Phillips Grossman. “We have to be sure that there are rules of the road.” 

“This country universally bans minor access to other addictive products, like tobacco and alcohol, because of the physical and psychological damage such products can inflict,” the suit says. “Social media is no different, and Meta’s own documents prove that it knows its products harm children.” 

A spokesperson for Meta did not immediately comment. 

The case is one of the first private lawsuits seeking class-action status on behalf of minors against Meta over mental health issues since Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen in 2021 disclosed the company’s internal research showing Instagram worsened body-image issues for some teens. 

The legal action adds to a growing swarm of suits against the company from state attorneys general and school districts aiming to tie America’s teen mental health crisis to social media. The suits argue that Meta violated consumer protection laws by deploying manipulative features to entice teens to stay on its social networks so as to boost profits, despite company executives knowing their platforms had harmful effects. 

The revelations contained in the Meta documents Haugen surfaced prompted some state and federal lawmakers to craft legislation to force big internet platforms to take bolder steps to protect young people. 

Last month, the Senate passed a pair of bills to expand online privacy and safety protections for children, including by forcing digital platforms to take “reasonable” steps to protect children from drug addiction, sexual exploitation and bullying. The legislative package also broadened some existing federal privacy restrictions to apply to anyone 16 or younger, instead of those 13 or younger. The bills face long odds of passage in the House this year. 

In October, 41 states and DC sued Meta, alleging Facebook and Instagram worsen mental health issues among young people, representing one of the biggest efforts by regulators to tackle the effect of social media on children’s wellbeing. Boies said Monday’s lawsuit could be evaluated by the same judge, along with the cases filed by the state attorneys general. 

Meta has introduced numerous features and polices intended to make its apps safer for children, including notifications that nudge teens to take a break, limits on how adults can contact kids and tools for parents to track their kids’ behaviour. But those changes have done little to quiet the outrage among some parents, activists and regulators, who argue the social media giant is still harming young people. 

Instagram, the focus of Monday’s lawsuit, has been the most common target of legal claims against Meta over such harms. Some features of the platform are alleged to have been intentionally developed to hook young users, including the ephemeral video and photo posts known as “stories”, “like counts” that encourage users to track how many people positively affirm their posts, and app notifications that alert young people to new content. 

The new lawsuit says Meta knew the risks of these features, citing internal research from “Project Daisy”, revealed in documents released by Haugen, in which the company experimented with removing like counts. Internal research showed Meta knew teens and young adults were more likely to compare themselves to others on social media, the lawsuit says, and after like counts were removed, negative social comparison among users decreased over time. 

The suit also alleges that Meta’s implementation of Instagram stories, videos and photos that disappear after 24 hours encouraged users to more frequently open the app to avoid missing out on new content. 

Since logging onto Instagram at age 10, the plaintiff, identified only as A.A., has “developed self-deprecating thoughts about her body and appearance”, court filings claim, because the platform shows her content from women she thinks are more attractive. The lawsuit also contends that she “cannot stop” using Instagram when she is with her family, often checking the site to make sure she doesn’t miss ephemeral content from her friends. Worry that her friends are ignoring her when they do not like or otherwise engage with her stories have led to anxiety and depression, the lawsuit says, harming her school grades. 

In addition to seeking US$5b in damages, the lawsuit asks the court to prohibit Meta from allowing minors to create an Instagram account without parental consent and from giving minors access to push notifications, like counts and ephemeral content. 

Many previous cases alleging that social media companies knowingly harmed teens have centred on examples of minors who suffered extreme hardships, such as sexual exploitation or self-harm, or died by suicide. Boies said his client’s suit is focused on recognising and addressing a wider scope of Instagram’s negative effects. 

“One of our focuses is to try to give attention to - to assign the solution for - not merely the role of the small number of really dramatic incidents but for the enormous harm that is done to the average user.” 

Written by: Naomi Nix 

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