Unredacted Meta Lawsuit Complaint Released By Attorney General: Here Are The Highlights

A mostly unredacted filing of Oklahoma’s lawsuit against Meta has been released by the Attorney General’s office. The complaint includes internal communications from Meta that the Attorney General’s office believe are damning.

The lawsuit has three main points: 

A) That Meta has engaged in transactions with Oklahoma youth through advertising on their platforms. These transactions are unlawful because they exploit young people. 

B) Meta, specifically Instagram, is designed to be addictive, especially to young people. 

C) Meta knows that its platforms are harmful to youth, and has omitted and misrepresented facts in order to lead the public to believe that Instagram is safe for youth.

Summary

The State of Oklahoma, through Attorney General Gentner Drummond, is suing Meta Platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, “to stop Meta’s deceptive and unfair business practices that are fueling a mental health crisis among adolescents in the State of Oklahoma.”

“Meta develops [...] powerful and unprecedented technologies that [...] hijack the time and attention of Oklahoma’s youth,” the summary states. “For most Oklahoma youth, Meta’s social media platforms [...] are an integral part of growing up, a necessity as they navigate adolescence.”

This claims that Meta is driven by greed, and has knowingly endangered and exploited kids and teenagers.

“The longer those users stay engaged, the more data they provide to Meta, and the more advertising revenue Meta rakes in,” the summary states.

The summary claims that Meta manipulated young people through dopamine-release algorithms, likes and other features that compare users socially, alerts meant to recall users and infinite scroll.

“Meta knows that Instagram induces compulsive use and facilitates addiction, and Meta knows that Instagram harms young users,” the summary states.

The lawsuit claims that Meta knows its platforms are “associated with serious mental health problems like depression, anxiety, insomnia, and interference with education and daily life.” But, the lawsuit claims, they continued to publish misleading community reports, “that dramatically understate the actual rates of harm being suffered by young Instagram users.”

Meta estimates that 80 percent of Oklahoma teens are active Instagram users.

Consumer Transactions With Oklahomans (Part A)

Part A of the lawsuit begins with the claim that Instagram exchanges consumers’ time for advertising revenue.

“In exchange for the right to use Instagram, consumers agree to a host of terms that power Meta’s advertising business.”

Because of this, the lawsuit claims that “Meta is motivated to maximize the time users spend on Instagram and Facebook.” By maximizing time spent on platforms, Meta is also able to refine their user data, so users can “be more precisely targeted.” 

“Meta has succeeded in capturing a breathtaking amount of consumer time, attention, and data - especially on Instagram, and especially from Adolescents.”

The lawsuit also claims that Meta prioritizes youth as their consumers.

It cites a Meta analysis from 2016, that says, “”The young ones are the good ones.” You want to bring people into your service young and early.”

The lawsuit also uses Meta’s research, which states that adolescents bring added traffic to Instagram by being “household influencers” and encouraging parents and siblings to Instagram.

It also claims that Instagram advertisers want young people to advertise to, because they are more likely to be influenced by advertisements and set trends for other young people. The lawsuit says that advertisers are able to target their ads towards age group and geographic markets.

Instagram Is Unfair To Adolescents (Part B)

Part B of the lawsuit claims that Instagram intentionally “induces compulsive use.” 

The lawsuit acknowledges that many companies have advertised to young people, but their product was “simply appealing, but not addictive.”

“Meta designed Instagram to exploit known vulnerabilities in Adolescents’ neurological development, making instagram biologically difficult - and in some cases nearly impossible - for teens to resist.”

According to the lawsuit, Meta conducted a lot of research in adolescent users so that they would spend more time on Meta’s platforms.

One specific study cited in the lawsuit is Instagram’s “Teen Fundamentals” study, which showed “Instagram’s power to induce compulsive use among Adolescents.” They studied the biological factors of adolescent development in order to “inform product strategy.”

The lawsuit claims that Meta leveraged these studies and “exploited Adolescents’ limited capacity for self-control.”

The lawsuit calls Instagram “ephemeral,” meaning fleeting, “incentivizing users to engage with it immediately.”

The lawsuit references the “Instagram Live” feature and “Stories” as examples of ephemeral content.

“Meta’s internal research also showed that Adolescents are developmentally wired to fear “missing out.” Meta induces constant engagement by making certain Instagram experiences ephemeral.”

Another problem brought up by the lawsuit is the ability to be on Meta’s platforms perpetually. They cite infinite scroll, autoplay and reels as examples of “perpetual, passive Instagram use.”

The lawsuit says that this makes it difficult for users to disengage.

The final point of Part B is that Instagram’s features trigger compulsive use in young people. The lawsuit then cites multiple findings that point to the addictive nature of Instagram.

Meta Is Deceptive (Part C)

Part C of the lawsuit claims that Meta intentionally deceived consumers “to believe that Instagram is a safer and less harmful platform than it is.”

The lawsuit cites a survey, done by Meta, that “found that Instagram drives negative social comparison.” That same survey says that women, especially teen girls, are disproportionately affected by negative social comparison.

The lawsuit claims that, not only did Meta know that some of its features were harmful, they also “exacerbated some of the harms.” 

“Meta has not disclosed the vast majority of its internal research showing the harm Instagram causes its users.”

The lawsuit describes instances in which Meta was informed of harm to users, and didn’t act. It then goes on to claim that Meta limited access internally to documents that showed Instagram’s harms.

“Meta’s internal culture of secrecy was designed to keep consumers and policymakers in the dark about the harm Meta was causing to its users.”

The lawsuit claims that Meta did not disclose that Instagram’s cosmetic surgery filters are “especially harmful to adolescents.” The lawsuit cites a study done by Meta that found “these behaviors exacerbate risk and maintenance of several mental health concerns.” The lawsuit says that Meta disregarded the findings and implemented the filters.

According to the lawsuit Meta received multiple warnings backed by research that found Instagram’s cosmetic surgery filters to be harmful.

The second section of Part C claims that Meta lies about how harmful Instagram actually is. The lawsuit alleges that Meta releases false reports about the prevalence of harmful content on platforms. These reports cite the platform’s community standards, and the removal of violating content, thereby making Instagram a safe place to be.

“Documents show that Meta intended the Reports to create that exact (mis)understanding.”

The lawsuit says that Meta’s reports state that “less than .05 [percent] of views were of content that violated our standards,” but an internal Meta report says 6.7 percent of users had seen violating content in the past week.

These discrepancies are seen in self harm, bullying and harassing content, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit states that Meta “deceptively led the public to believe that its platforms are not addictive, despite Meta’s own internal research to the contrary.”