Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti (R) released on Wednesday the unredacted lawsuit he is leading against Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, which alleges Meta created Instagram using “deceptive and unfair business practices that are fomenting a mental health crisis in this state.”
Skrmetti stated in a press release that his office’s “complaint makes clear that Meta knew its platforms were hurting kids and made a very clear decision to choose money over the mental health of its young users.” The attorney general said that “Tennessee law protects kids from companies, big or small, that mislead and hurt them” and that the state “will continue to aggressively enforce that law.”
In posts on X, Skrmetti outlined allegations made against Meta in the lawsuit, revealing the company purportedly “studied teens’ brain development to help drive product changes that make their platforms more addictive” and “admitted that ‘teen brains are much more sensitive to dopamine,'” which Skrmetti said Meta knows means “[teenagers] have a harder time closing the app even if they want to.”
Skrmetti claimed that Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg “personally intervened to make available ‘selfie’ filters that mimicked plastic surgery effects… even though Meta’s retained experts found that those filters had devastating effects on young women.”
1⃣ — Meta studied teens' brain development to help drive product changes that make their platforms more addictive.
Meta admitted that "teen brains are much more sensitive to dopamine" and "due to the immature brain" they have a harder time closing the app even if they want to.
— TN Attorney General (@AGTennessee) January 10, 2024
Meta also allegedly funded research revealing “teens talk of Instagram in terms of an ‘addicts’ narrative,” wherein young people acknowledge use of the app is detrimental “but feel powerless to resist,” but did not respond to the research by changing their business practices.
The company also allegedly failed to respond when it learned its “Time Spent” tools, designed to track social media usage, “delivered inaccurate consumers.” Meta declined to disable them upon learning of the inaccuracies. “They preferred to mislead users rather than suffer a PR hit,” said Skrmetti.
Additionally, Skrmetti wrote that Meta knows 48 percent of teenage girls compare their appearance to those of women on Instagram, and 34 percent “feel intense pressure to look perfect.” Regardless, Skrmetti argued Meta “focused on increasing the amount of time those girls spent on social media.”
The attorney general alleges the company refused to disclose research indicating that among 13 to 15-year-olds who use Instagram, 13 percent received unwanted advances, 27.2 percent witnessed bullying, 10.8 percent were targets of bullying, and 8.4 percent encountered content relating to self-harm.
In addition to civil penalties and compensation for the cost of the lawsuit to Tennessee taxpayers, Skrmetti’s complaint seeks a permanent injunction preventing Meta from exploiting platform features “that cause compulsive use” among minor users and for the court to order Meta “meaningfully disclose, on a regular basis, the risks posed by Instagram” to young users.
Google recently agreed to pay $700 million to settle a separate lawsuit brought by Skrmetti and a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general. The settlement successfully saw Google abandon what Skrmetti identified as anti-competitive trade practices related to its Google Play Store.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Georgia Star News, The Virginia Star, and the Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
