California joins multistate suit against Facebook parent company Meta alleging harm to children

California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced Tuesday that he is joining dozens of other states in a federal lawsuit against Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram, alleging that it is harming the mental health of young people.

The lawsuit, which is co-led by both Democratic and Republican attorneys general, alleges that the tech giant has violated both state and federal laws, including the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and California’s False Advertising Law and Unfair Competition Law.

The complaint alleges that Meta has created a business model that maximizes the time young people spend on its platforms and that it uses psychologically manipulative features while misleading the public about the safety of those features. States charge that the company also misleads the public about how many users are harmed by the platforms, that it refuses to address those harms and that it works to conceal and downplay the adverse effects.

“Our bipartisan investigation has arrived at a solemn conclusion: Meta has been harming our children and teens, cultivating addiction to boost corporate profits,” Bonta said in a statement.

Much of the complaint against Meta remains under seal, meaning it is not publicly available. But Bonta’s office in a statement cited publicly available sources — such as testimony from former Meta employees — about the company’s attempts to addict children and teens.

Bonta also has an ongoing investigation into the social media platform TikTok, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, for practices allegedly harmful to young users.

In response to the lawsuit, Meta released the following statement:

“We share the attorneys general’s commitment to providing teens with safe, positive experiences online, and have already introduced over 30 tools to support teens and their families. We’re disappointed that instead of working productively with companies across the industry to create clear, age-appropriate standards for the many apps teens use, the attorneys general have chosen this path.”

This lawsuit is the latest front in California’s ongoing battle with Meta. Earlier this year, lawmakers considered a bill that would have required Meta and other social media companies to pay for news that is shared on their platforms. That bill was delayed until 2024.

In 2022, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law — AB 2273 — that prohibits social media companies from using children’s personal information. NetChoice, a tech industry lobbyist group that represents several companies, including Meta, is currently suing to block the law from going into effect.

This story was originally published October 24, 2023 at 9:43 AM with the headline "California joins multistate suit against Facebook parent company Meta alleging harm to children."