Meta on our minds

Lydia Hamann’s fascination with Instagram’s “Explore” page started at age 13. First, she watched baking and puppy videos. But soon, mental health–related posts appeared on her feed, like one she recalls titled “5 Symptoms To See if You’re Actually Depressed.”

Before Hamann’s ninth grade year, her family moved, and she started at a new school. When the pandemic hit, she spent even more hours scrolling Instagram, including posts about mental illnesses. Eventually the self-described bubbly extrovert began experiencing anxiety attacks.

Hamann, now 18, believes Instagram had something to do with that: “I lost who I was. I was looking to social media to tell me how I was feeling.”

In newly filed lawsuits, attorneys general in 41 states seek to hold Meta, the Mark Zuckerberg–run company that owns Instagram and Facebook, accountable for allegedly harming young users. A joint ­lawsuit, filed by 33 states on Oct. 24 in U.S. District Court in Northern California, claims Meta marketed its products to users under the age of 13, a violation of federal law. The states accuse the company of misleading the public about its platforms’ addictive features and targeting children for monetary gain. Eight other states and the District of Columbia filed separate lawsuits with ­similar claims.

The lawsuits represent an unusual bipartisan effort to clamp down on the tech giant amid growing awareness of the dangers of social media, including mental and physical harm, for young users. But opponents of the litigation, including the tech industry, argue that state intervention will undermine ­privacy and free speech.

Meta responded to news of the lawsuits by noting its dozens of new tools to support teens and enhance parental controls. “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,” a company spokesperson said in an email.

The lawsuits follow an ongoing multi-state investigation into Meta’s alleged harms against children. That probe is led by attorneys general Jonathan Skrmetti of Tennessee, a Republican, and Phil Weiser of Colorado, a Democrat.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill and in several states in recent years have attempted to pass measures to protect kids online. Federal ­legislation—including the Kids Online Safety Act—is slowly gaining traction. A Utah law that takes effect next March forces tech companies to verify users’ ages. But federal judges in three states—California, Arkansas, and Texas—have blocked state laws addressing children’s privacy and parental oversight online, citing likely free speech violations.

The new lawsuits represent a fresh attempt at regulation. State lawyers hope to prove that Meta violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, a federal law barring companies from collecting data on minors under age 13 without parental consent. The law’s burden of proof is high, though, and litigators must prove Meta’s employees had “actual knowledge minors were using their platforms,” notes Clare Morell, a senior policy ­analyst at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. She expects Meta will try to claim immunity under Section 230, a federal statute protecting websites from liability for users’ online activity.

The lawsuit filed in Northern California argues Meta has a financial interest in keeping users addicted to its products: The longer users scroll, the more ads Meta sells. By using algorithms to personalize user content, the suit claims, Meta “manipulates dopamine releases in its young users … much like a gambler at a slot machine.”

The attorneys general also cite internal Meta documents, disclosed by former employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen in 2021, that revealed the company knew Instagram contributed to worsening body image and mood disorders among teen girls.

Despite those claims, Jennifer Huddleston, a technology policy research fellow at the Cato Institute, cautioned against a “one-size-fits-all regulatory approach” to teens and social media. “It goes back to that concern of who gets to decide what it means for content to be age appropriate,” she said. “Should that be the ­government or should that be trusted adults in a young person’s life?”

Melanie Hempe, founder of ScreenStrong, a nonprofit helping ­families with screen dependency problems, urges parents not to wait for the lawsuits to play out in courts.

“They need to get their kids off social media immediately,” she said. “It’s not ‘no’ forever, it’s ‘no’ for a ­season to get them through the most sensitive part of their emotional and physical brain development. Meta isn’t responsible for doing that.”

At the height of Lydia Hamann’s anxiety attacks, her mother attended a ScreenStrong event. Afterward, she abruptly took away Hamann’s social media. Two months later, Hamann says, her anxiety disappeared.

Today, the teenager is a student ambassador for ScreenStrong. She says she now keeps social media off her phone entirely: “I made a vow to myself that I’m not going to have it in my pocket … I know how it affects me.”