Meta slammed with lawsuits for addictive algorithms, negligence, failure to warn, and more

Instagram’s parent company Meta is currently facing eight lawsuits that allege that the company has not done enough to “prevent psychological harm to its young users and is exploiting them for profit”. The lawsuits were filed this week and they allege that social media sites “deliberately design and use addictive psychological tactics to hook young and vulnerable users”. The lawsuits also allege that the social media sites are doing this despite “extensive insider knowledge” that their products are causing serious damage to youngsters’ mental health.

It has been alleged that these popular sites are failing to protect young users and prolonged exposure is causing “actual or attempted suicides, self-harm, eating disorders, severe anxiety, depression and issues with sleep”, all for “higher profit margins”.

"These applications could have been designed to minimize any potential harm, but instead, a decision was made to aggressively addict adolescents in the name of corporate profits. The defendants knew that their products and related services were dangerous to young and impressionable children and teens, yet they completely disregarded their own information,” said Andy Birchfield, an attorney with Beasley Allen Law, which filed the suits.

The lawsuits, which are about 100 pages each, have been filed in Delaware, Colorado, Georgia, Florida, Missouri, Illinois, Texas, and Tennessee. The suits allege that Meta has failed to warn minors and their parents about the harmful effects of social media. Thanks to the internal documents leaked by whistleblower Frances Haugen, who was a Facebook product manager, users learned about these harmful issues only last year.

Some of the documents leaked by Haugen are internal research about the impact of Instagram on teenagers and were published in a story by The Wall Street Journal. Post the expose, Facebook argued that the results of the research had been misunderstood. 

The lawsuits also point out that Meta purposely designs products to keep users addicted. For example, when minors on the platform “like” a post, they feel a sense of euphoria and then suffer withdrawal symptoms like anxiety and insomnia when they stop using social media.

"Meta is further aware that, despite the platforms' adverse impact to teenage users' well-being, the absence of impulse control often renders teens powerless to oppose the platforms' allure," the lawsuits said.  Meta is yet to respond to these lawsuits.

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