(San Francisco) Meta Platforms, Facebook’s parent company, deliberately designed its social platforms to attract children and was aware of millions of complaints about underage users on Instagram, according to an unsealed legal complaint outlined in articles in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times.
The complaint, initially made public in redacted form, was the first salvo in a lawsuit filed at the end of October by the attorneys general of 33 American states.
According to reports, Meta said in a statement that the complaint misrepresents its work, undertaken over the past decade, to make the online experience safe for teenagers. The web giant has said it does not design its products to be addictive among young users.
Meta did not immediately comment on the unredacted complaint following a request from The Associated Press.
Company documents cited in the complaint described several Meta executives acknowledging that the company designed its products to exploit gaps in youth psychology, such as impulsive behavior, sensitivity to peer pressure and underestimation of risks, according to reports.
Others acknowledged that Facebook and Instagram were also popular with children under 13 who, under company policy, were not allowed to use the service.
A Facebook security official hinted at the possibility that the crackdown on young users could harm the company’s business in a 2019 email, according to the Facebook report. Wall Street Journal.
But a year later, the same executive expressed frustration that while Facebook was willing to explore the use of underage users for commercial purposes, it was not showing the same enthusiasm for ways to identify underage users. younger people and remove them from its platforms.
The complaint says Meta sometimes has a backlog of up to 2.5 million young children’s accounts awaiting action, according to reports.