A legal storm hits the social media giants. The law firm Motley Rice has filed a sensational lawsuit against Meta, Google, TikTok e Snapchatacting on behalf of numerous US school districts. The accusation is serious: the companies, despite knowing the risks associated with the use of their platforms, deliberately concealed these dangers from users, parents and teachers. Not only that, they would also be accused of negligence in the protection of children and adolescents, of encouraging the sexual exploitation of minors and even of attempting to corrupt organizations that deal with children.
The lawsuit includes specific allegations, including tacitly encouraging the use of the platforms by children under the age of 13 years old and for not having effectively combated child pornography content. According to the plaintiffs, the social platforms knowingly put the growth in the number of users before their safety, concealing the risks associated with the use of social networks.
A striking example concerns TikTokaccused of sponsoring the National Parent Teacher Association (PTA) of the United Statesexerting a strong influence on the organization. According to what is reported in the lawsuit, representatives of TikTok they would have stated that the PTA “He will do everything we want, […] their CEO will issue press releases on our behalf.” The independence of the association would therefore have been compromised by the interests of the social network.
The charges against Meta appear to be particularly detailed. The company would be accused of having interrupted internal studies on the impact of Facebook on the emotional state of users, after finding concrete evidence of damage to mental health. Internal documents of Meta reveal that in 2020within the project “Mercury“, its employees, in collaboration with the research company Nielsenattempted to evaluate the effect of “deactivating” the Facebook. To the company’s disappointment, «people who didn’t use Facebook for a week they reported a decrease in feelings of depression, anxiety, loneliness and social comparison.”
Instead of publishing these findings or conducting further research, Meta would shut down the project, saying the negative results had been distorted by the “existing media narrative” about the company. However, the documents show that at least some researchers considered the study’s conclusions valid, comparing the politics of Meta to that of tobacco companies, who “conduct research knowing about the harm of cigarettes, and then hide this information”.
Andy Stonespokesperson for Metasaid the study was stopped due to methodological flaws and that the company worked hard to improve the safety of its products. “The comprehensive data will demonstrate that for more than a decade we have listened to parents, examined the most important issues and made real changes to protect adolescents,” he said.
However, according to internal documents provided by the plaintiffs:
- Meta allegedly intentionally designed its youth-friendly safety features to be ineffective and rarely used, blocking testing of safety features that it believed could hinder the social network’s growth.
- Meta required users to be discovered 17 volte to attempting to sexually exploit someone before the company removed them from its platform. This is described in one document as a “very, very, very high threshold”.
- Meta recognized that optimizing products to increase teen engagement led to them being shown more harmful content, but did so anyway.
- Meta has blocked internal efforts for years to prevent bad actors from contacting minors, to encourage the growth of the social network’s popularity.
- In the 2021in a message SMSthe head of Meta, Mark Zuckerbergstated that children’s safety is not his primary concern, “when I have a number of other areas I’m focused on, like building the metaverse.”
- Zuckerberg he also rejected or ignored requests from Nick Clegghead of global policy at Metato increase funding for child safety work.
Stone has rejected these accusations, arguing that the company’s safety measures for teenagers are effective. “We strongly disagree with these allegations, which are based on cherry-picked quotes and uninformed opinions,” he said Stone.
The internal documents of Meta cited in the lawsuit are not public and Meta he made a motion to seal them. Stone stated that this request is due to the “overly broad nature of what plaintiffs are seeking to disclose.” A hearing on the motion is set for January 26th in the District Court of California northern. The legal battle is only just beginning, and the implications for the future of social media and online child protection could be enormous. The stakes are high: the safety and well-being of new generations in the digital age.
