Meta Platforms lost its bid on June 29 to dismiss a lawsuit brought by more than two dozen state attorneys general that accuses the tech giant of deliberately designing Facebook and Instagram to be addictive for children and misleading users about the alleged harms.
Oakland, California-based U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers rejected Meta’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which made claims of deception, unfairness, and violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, a federal law.
Meta tried to argue that the state attorneys general had no evidence of misleading users about the platforms’ alleged addictiveness, claiming that “social media addiction” is not a legitimate psychiatric diagnosis, and therefore, Facebook and Instagram are not addictive.
“Meta urges the Court to conclude that ‘social media addiction’ is not an accepted diagnosis, and thus statements that its platforms are not addictive cannot be false,” Gonzalez Rogers wrote in her order, explaining that Meta points to how the condition cannot be found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) 5.
“This Court has already held that the absence of the term ‘social media addiction’ from those publications is not dispositive in this context, in part because more than a decade of research on social media has passed since the DSM was published in 2013, and more recent statements from the American Psychiatric Association have in fact defined ‘social media addiction,’ suggesting that forthcoming publications may include it,” she said.
Gonzalez Rogers also determined that Meta failed to comply with the notice and parental consent requirements of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, and ultimately granted the plaintiffs summary judgment on that issue.
Meta, a tech company based out of Menlo Park, California, also argued that it didn’t violate that law because Facebook and Instagram are designed and marketed to general audiences, rather than just minors.
“Evidence exists that Meta employees have authored internal documents indicating that the platforms are addictive and that teens interact with them in an addictive manner,” Gonzalez Rogers wrote in her 38-page ruling.
“Evidence further indicates that Meta executives and other high-ranked employees were included in email and other conversations discussing that the platforms may induce compulsive use by teens.”
The judge said that the state attorneys general offered a “reasonable interpretation” of the company’s statements that “Facebook and Instagram are not designed in ways that cause teens to compulsively use the platforms to their detriment.”
“To the extent plaintiffs’ evidence shows that the platforms are in fact designed to do just that, a jury could reasonably find the statements were untrue to a reasonable person,” Gonzalez Rogers said.
Meta did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
Court records show that a trial is scheduled for Aug. 18.
Gonzalez Rogers is also overseeing a related multidistrict lawsuit that has been joined by more than 2,600 individuals, local governments, and school districts to determine if social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Google, and YouTube, are addictive to children.
Reuters contributed to this report.
