Meta’s Children Addiction Lawsuit!
Los Angeles, US, Aug 18 (EFE).-
Lawyers for Meta rejected accusations from 29 states on Tuesday that it deliberately sought to create addiction among children and teenagers on Facebook and Instagram, at the start of a landmark trial in which plaintiffs hope to achieve the most significant changes to these apps.
The trial, taking place in the federal court in Oakland, California, represents the biggest legal challenge against the tech company for “hooking” underage users, which could foster addictive behaviors among children and teenagers and cause emotional and physical harm, even death in the most serious cases.
The tech company also faces accusations of violating federal law by improperly collecting and using minors’ personal data.
Meta’s lawyer, Paul Schmidt, said he strongly disagreed with the accusations against the tech company and asked the jury to keep an open mind.
Furthermore, he defended the work the company has done to help improve the wellbeing of the 20 percent of teenagers who, according to figures from a survey by the tech company, say they feel worse when using Instagram.
He also highlighted the company’s efforts to block users under 13 years old. In the last three months, the company deleted 600,000 accounts created in connection with unauthorized users.
Pressure from plaintiffs
Meta’s lawyers face an uphill battle to convince the eight-person jury that will make recommendations to Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who will ultimately deliver the final verdict.
California Deputy Attorney General Megan O’Neill assumed the role of spokesperson for the plaintiffs’ legal team on Tuesday and asserted that the tech company, founded by Mark Zuckerberg, “hid the truth.”
“When it came time to make the decision — choose what’s safe for kids, or choose what’s safe for its profits — time and time again, profits won,” O’Neill stated.
First witness Arturo Bejar, a former Meta engineer who the company tried to prevent from testifying, said that he had alerted senior company officials about the harm people were suffering due to the way Instagram was designed and that Meta had the mantra “move fast and break things”.
Several of the attorney general plaintiffs were present in the courtroom, including Rob Bonta from California, Phil Weiser from Colorado, and Jennifer Davenport from New Jersey.
“We just heard from the first witness, a whistleblower engineer from Meta who was in charge of child safety while there who talked about the fact that Meta knew the harms it was visiting upon children but failed to act,” Bonta said in a press conference following the first day of the trial. “They also talked about their motto, their culture if you will, which was to ‘move fast and break things’. Unfortunately the thing that was broken here was the mental health of our children.”
“Meta has designed and deployed a dangerous product with dangerous features that they knew would create excessive use and compulsive use by children and it would create mental health harms including things like anxiety and depression, like body image issues, like addictive tendencies, like learning loss,” Bonta said.
“They knew all that and they knew their product was dangerous and they lied to the public, they lied to Congress… Meta has acted unlawfully here and we are here to hold them accountable.”
Prosecutors emphasized that the litigation is part of a broader process that includes other tech giants, such as Google, TikTok, and Snap.
Meta also had to face the presence of parents who have sued the company for harm to their children outside the courthouse on Tuesday.
The company faces a process lasting approximately six weeks, during which Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri are expected to be called to testify. EFE amv/tw
