CHICAGO (AP) — Meta insists it has a long history of protecting its youngest customers as it defends itself against a swath of lawsuits alleging its social media empire harms children.
In the latest such instance, the social media giant is in a California federal court that it contributes to the youth mental health crisis by deliberately and stealthily designing features to on its platforms Instagram and Facebook. Four states are seeking billions of dollars in damages as well as fundamental changes to how Meta runs those apps.
Children’s mental health, and what they do and see on social media, are all issues “Meta takes seriously and tries to act on,” Paul Schmidt, a lawyer for the tech giant, said in opening statements this week.
Critics say the company's safety record falls short and that many of its protections simply don’t work.
They include Marc Berkman, executive director at the Organization for Social Media Safety, who said Meta introduced safeguards promising to protect children in response to public pressure rather than out of concern.
There’s been a “lack of real institutional willingness to act here,” Berkman said.
Here’s a look at some of the changes Meta has introduced, along with the work advocates say could still be done.
Access to users and content-focused protections
focus on addressing harassment and offensive content.
Instagram users have always been able to block others — and, along with Meta’s oldest crown jewel, Facebook — the app has gradually added features for reporting problematic accounts and inappropriate content.
In 2016, Instagram users were given the option to delete or filter comments they found offensive, and later added warnings that prompted users to reconsider posting potentially harmful content, as well as options to limit comments and tags on their posts.
Meta also says it prevents adults from starting private chats with teens if they are not already connected, and has increased checks to make sure users under 13 — the minimum age for holding a Facebook or Instagram account — aren't online. Schmidt said in his opening remarks that Meta recognizes some users still sign up using incorrect birthdays but that the company takes enforcement of age limits seriously.
The company says it also posts warnings and resources at the top of Instagram search results related to suicide, self-harm and eating disorders, and touts its launched , as a safe space for teenagers online. It aligns photo and video restrictions for teen accounts with , unless there’s parental permission otherwise.
Critics complain these changes amount to little more than corporate posturing.
A from former employee and and four online safety advocacy nonprofits accused Meta of not taking “real steps” to address youth safety, instead opting for “splashy headlines about new tools for parents and Instagram Teen Accounts for underage users.”
“We really found that overall what Meta was marketing under Teen Accounts was very lacking in actual protections,” said Haley Hinkle, policy counsel at Fairplay, which co-authored the report. They evaluated 47 of Meta’s 53 safety features for teens on Instagram and found 60% of them were either not available or didn't work as advertised, Hinkle said.
Meta called the report's findings “misleading” and “dangerously speculative.”
Scrolling and core design
Researchers say Meta's efforts to reduce the risk of children becoming addicted to the scrolling features of social media platforms have been largely unsuccessful.
Ashley Shea, a Ph.D. candidate specializing in social media and online spaces at Cornell University, points to what academics call “attention-capture deceptive designs” that are not exclusive to Meta's platforms. They include infinite scrolling, “casino style” pulls to refresh content, push notifications and algorithmic recommendations. Those features “prey on the cognitive vulnerabilities” of young people with developing brains, in particular the need to feel rewarded.
Meta has taken important steps to address problematic content, cyberbullies and sexual predators, Shea said, but she has not seen the same level of effort to offset the addictive impact of attention-capture deceptive designs.
Nudges and time management controls
“There’s no question that some teens struggle to manage their time with social media,” Schmidt said Tuesday, adding that Meta’s time management tools prove its evolution on the issue. Those tools include parental supervision controls and in-app “nudges” for teen users who repeatedly look at the same type of content or spend too long on Instagram or Facebook late at night.
Hinkle notes the “entirely voluntary” time management tools are not easy to set up, and amount to “far too little too late.”
Béjar, the former Meta employee and whistleblower, agrees. In testimony Wednesday, he said a is “designed to fail.” Users have to turn the feature on themselves and, he said, very few do.
Across the board, tech companies exist to maximize revenue, said Berkman, and for almost every social media platform today, that means “maximizing children using their features for as long as they can.”
Legal challenges focused on “the fact that these are defective products by design because of their features, not the content per se” is something new, Shea added. And beyond the courtroom, mounting pressure on lawmakers could bring more industrywide changes.
“The momentum only continues to grow,” she said. “Ultimately, these are for-profit companies that respond to economic pressures. And so I think that the more economic pressure they’re confronted with through these litigations, the quicker they will have to adapt.”
