"This August, forty-seven states sued Meta over claims that they were addicting children to social media." - Langston king-neece 6th grade
This August, forty-seven states sued Meta over claims that they were addicting children to social media. As part of the lawsuit, Meta made many changes to when children can get notifications, along with other changes, and paid a $17 billion dollar fine. The money will be used on young people's mental health programs, after-school programs, and crisis aversion.
There are new restrictive features for teens as part of the lawsuit. These include features such as “Night Mode,” which spans from midnight to 6AM, where teens can’t get notifications, and a two hour time limit on Instagram and Facebook. When asked about it, 6th grader Gigi Cade-Lopez said, “I think that when they have limits, children try to rebel and then parents take it away…”
Meta also now only allows thirteen-year-olds and older to make a Meta account. From 8AM to 3PM, kids will also no longer get “push” notifications, which are clickable notifications that are sent to your mobile device and don’t require you to have a certain app open,, but they will get other notifications during this “School Mode.”
The lawsuit was a federal Multidistrict Litigation (MDL). This MDL contained thousands of separate lawsuits. An MDL is a tool courts use when many different cases say the same things. Instead of having tons of lawyers find the evidence again and again, only one judge leads the other lawyers, and also answers common questions.
The presented evidence for this lawsuit are 100+ possibly deceptive statements by Meta. Meta has stated in retaliation to this that the statements were either correct when said, were just an opinion, or were said without needed knowledge. Also, Meta insisted that they couldn't have lied about the addictiveness of Meta’s apps because “social media addiction” is fake. In Meta’s words, “‘Social media addiction’ is not a recognized condition.”
One obstacle for litigants is Section 230, which is a federal regulation that helps protect platforms from blame that is based off of the content posted by users. What it means is you cannot sue a platform for defamation ( saying something that is untrue that hurts somebody’s reputation) just because a user posted something defamatory. Judge Gonzalez-Rogers has ruled that it does not stop all blame against the platform, so the states have fitted their claims into Section 230’s gaps.
This lawsuit could mean one of two things. On the one hand, this could change social media permanently, on the other, this lawsuit could do nothing to stop the social media giants. But no matter how it ends up playing out, it will be considered a victory for those whose families were hurt by Meta.
There are new restrictive features for teens as part of the lawsuit. These include features such as “Night Mode,” which spans from midnight to 6AM, where teens can’t get notifications, and a two hour time limit on Instagram and Facebook. When asked about it, 6th grader Gigi Cade-Lopez said, “I think that when they have limits, children try to rebel and then parents take it away…”
Meta also now only allows thirteen-year-olds and older to make a Meta account. From 8AM to 3PM, kids will also no longer get “push” notifications, which are clickable notifications that are sent to your mobile device and don’t require you to have a certain app open,, but they will get other notifications during this “School Mode.”
The lawsuit was a federal Multidistrict Litigation (MDL). This MDL contained thousands of separate lawsuits. An MDL is a tool courts use when many different cases say the same things. Instead of having tons of lawyers find the evidence again and again, only one judge leads the other lawyers, and also answers common questions.
The presented evidence for this lawsuit are 100+ possibly deceptive statements by Meta. Meta has stated in retaliation to this that the statements were either correct when said, were just an opinion, or were said without needed knowledge. Also, Meta insisted that they couldn't have lied about the addictiveness of Meta’s apps because “social media addiction” is fake. In Meta’s words, “‘Social media addiction’ is not a recognized condition.”
One obstacle for litigants is Section 230, which is a federal regulation that helps protect platforms from blame that is based off of the content posted by users. What it means is you cannot sue a platform for defamation ( saying something that is untrue that hurts somebody’s reputation) just because a user posted something defamatory. Judge Gonzalez-Rogers has ruled that it does not stop all blame against the platform, so the states have fitted their claims into Section 230’s gaps.
This lawsuit could mean one of two things. On the one hand, this could change social media permanently, on the other, this lawsuit could do nothing to stop the social media giants. But no matter how it ends up playing out, it will be considered a victory for those whose families were hurt by Meta.