AG Ferguson statement on defeating Meta’s attempt to dismiss his lawsuit accusing it of harming youth mental health

SEATTLE - Attorney General Bob Ferguson issued the following statement today after a federal court rejected Meta's attempt to dismiss his lawsuit accusing the company of knowingly harming youth mental health.

"Meta can't get off the hook that easily. This ruling brings us one step closer to accountability. Meta and its top executives disregarded their own research and publicly downplayed the risks Facebook and Instagram posed to its most vulnerable users. I am committed to protecting the mental health of Washington youth."

Ferguson is suing Meta in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, as part of a bipartisan coalition of 42 state attorneys general. The federal lawsuit, filed by 33 of those states, accuses Meta of putting profits before the well-being of millions of children and teens by intentionally targeting them with harmful features to get them hooked for life. Internal documents show the tech company knew the risks those features posed and not only ignored them, but publicly downplayed them in violation of the Consumer Protection Act. Read more about the lawsuit here.

The judge's order

In the order, U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers denied most of Meta's motions to dismiss the case. Judge Gonzalez Rogers ruled that Ferguson's asserted violations of the Washington state Consumer Protection Act and federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act can proceed. The judge wrote: "Meta's alleged yearslong public campaign of deception as to the risks of addiction and mental harms to minors from platform use fits readily within these states' deceptive acts and practices framework. Meta's design, development, and deployment of certain product features plausibly constitutes unfair or unconscionable practices under all at-issue federal and state standards."

The judge also denied Meta's attempt to dismiss state claims that it failed to warn users of known risks of addiction. The judge kept in claims regarding Meta specifically using its programming to target younger users, which include:

• appearance altering filters;
• features that hindered time restrictions; and
• and Instagram's "multiple accounts" function.

However, the judge dismissed other claims that Meta's programming violated state and federal laws, including:

• infinite scroll and autoplay;
• how Meta designed and deployed audiovisual and vibration notifications and alerts;
• the quantification and display of "likes;" and
• how Meta algorithmically served content to young users.

Case background

Ferguson's lawsuit accuses Meta's top leaders of knowingly targeting youth - calling them a "valuable, but untapped" market - with harmful features designed to get them hooked for life to maximize profits. Meta simultaneously and publicly downplayed the associated risks for those users, including disregarding its own research. These tactics contradicted the company's public-facing claims that it puts user safety first.

The federal lawsuit also alleges that Meta knew young users, including those under 13, were active on the platforms and knowingly collected data from those users without parental consent.

The lawsuit claims these unfair and deceptive practices violate state consumer protection laws, including here in Washington, and the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. Meta designed features to provide prolonged and repeated dopamine, or "feel-good," responses that discourage users from leaving Meta's apps once they open them, tapping into their "fear of missing out," and offering facial filters that mimic plastic surgery.

Internal documents show that Meta knew about the wide variety of harms its features could cause young users. Not only did Meta disregard and fail to mitigate the risks, the company exploited them. According to internal documents included in the lawsuit:

• Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg ignored internal documents on detailed consultation with "21 independent experts around the world" who found that filters with cosmetic surgery effects "can have severe impacts on both the individuals using the effects and those viewing the images." Experts told Meta that children were particularly vulnerable as well as those with a history of eating disorders and mental illness. Instagram's head of public policy wrote to Zuckerberg that outside experts were "nearly unanimous on the harm here." Zuckerberg canceled a meeting to discuss these issues, then subsequently vetoed a proposal to ban the filters. He dismissed the concerns as "paternalistic."
• In response to the veto, then-vice president of product design wrote in an email to Zuckerberg: "I respect your call on this and I'll support it, but want to just say for the record that I don't think it's the right call given the risks . . . I just hope that years from now we will look back and feel good about the decision we made here."
• Meta executives repeatedly ignored or declined requests to fund proposed well-being initiatives and strategies to reduce harmful features on Instagram and Facebook. For example, in April 2019, Meta's then-vice president of research emailed Zuckerberg proposing well-being investments on the platforms, pointing out, "there is increasing scientific evidence (particularly in the US…) that the average net effect of [Facebook] on people's well-being is slightly negative." Meta's leadership team declined to fund the initiative. Requests like these, which involved internal discussions between multiple top executives at both Instagram and Facebook over several years, were repeatedly denied.

The coalition seeks to stop Meta from engaging in unlawful practices that deceive and harm youth, including fundamentally changing the user experience for all adolescent users.

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