States All Gang Up To Sue Meta Based On Highly Questionable Theories Of ‘Harm’ To Children

I really wish we could fast forward a few decades to the point where we look back on the moral panic over kids and social media and laugh about it, the same way we now laugh about similar moral panics regarding television, Dungeons & Dragons, rock & roll music, comic books, pinball, chess, novels, and the waltz. But, at the moment, basically everyone is losing their minds over the still totally unproven claim that social media is bad for kids' mental health.

This is despite multiple massive studies highlighting no evidence of any actual causal connection. Earlier this year, the American Psychological Association released a detailed study on the matter, that reviewed basically all of the research literature out there, and found no evidence of a causal link, stating that social media was not inherently beneficial or harmful to kids. And the APA has been known in the past to fall for bogus moral panics, so when even it is saying there's just no evidence," perhaps there's really no evidence.

Even the much publicized Surgeon General's report on social media and kids admitted (in the fine print) that there appeared to be no evidence of harm, but said that we should act as if there was (which is a very odd recommendation).

And then there have been a few massive studies recently, including a giant study from the well respected Pew Research Center, who found that most teenagers found social media helpful. Just recently we pointed to another study, this time out of Oxford University, looking at over one million people across 72 countries, finding no evidence of social media increasing psychological harm.

But, still, the media (and especially politicians) keep insisting that it's true.

And now it's lead to this: a whole bunch of states have sued Meta for claimed harms to kids. The complaint there lists 33 states, though reports say that another 9 states are filing a separate lawsuit (I haven't seen that one yet).

Much of the (heavily redacted) complaint seems to be based on the full-on belief in the moral panic about social media and harms to kids. It takes a bunch of things completely out of context - such as the fact that Meta, like any company, keeps trying to grow its business, as some sort of proof of nefarious intent. Unless these states are trying to argue that economic growth is illegal, many of these arguments seem pretty weak.

There are so many strange things in the complaint that present things with an interpretation that is not supported by reality. For example, it claims that the move away from chronological feeds to algorithmic feeds was somehow a nefarious attempt to attract young users to the platform and keep them engaged on its Social Media Platforms for as long as possible."

Meta had originally displayed content on a user's Feed" chronologically, i.e., in the order the content was posted by people the user elected to follow. Meta moved from chronological Feeds to engagement-based Feeds in 2009 (for Facebook) and 2016 (for Instagram).

The engagement-based Feed is different and alters the users' experience. It algorithmically presents material to users based on several engagement components: posts with more Likes," comments, and other indicia of user engagement are displayed to users first.

This change was designed to prioritize material most likely to engage users for longer periods of time.

Are they... going to sue TV stations for putting popular shows in prime time next? I mean, of course Facebook is trying to increase engagement. What website isn't?

Also, studies have shown, repeatedly, that users like the algorithmic feed, and most hate the chronological feed (yes, I know there are exceptions). Recent research found that when there are chronological feeds, users get a lot more misinformation and junk they don't want to see.

Is it the states' position that everyone should be forced to get more junk and misinformation in their feeds?

The complaint, at times, goes full on cinematic moral panic, straight out of the massively misleading misinformation movie The Social Dilemma."

By algorithmically serving content to young users according to variable reward schedules, Meta manipulates dopamine releases in its young users, inducing them to engage repeatedly with its Platforms-much like a gambler at a slot machine.

I know this is a popular claim, but it's nonsense, not supported by any actual science.

I mean, the weird thing in all of this, which no one will admit, is that, yes, pointing people to more relevant information might make them use your product more. But, that's because it's providing more relevant information.

The complaint points a few times to Frances Haugen's leaked documents, but again, those were massively misrepresented in the media. As we highlighted multiple times, the research showed that in 23 of 24 areas studied (all twelve for boys, and 11 of 12 for girls), more kids felt better about themselves on the topics of conversation, rather than worse. There was only one area, body images," where the number of girls who felt worse outweighed those who felt better. And Facebook's researchers called out that fact in the research in order to point out that it was an issue they should look at dealing with.

I mean, one could easily argue that fashion magazines, teen magazines, not to mention television and movies, could readily be accused of making teen girls feel bad about their own body image," but did the states sue over that? Of course not. And I'll bet that literally none of those had an internal research group studying the matter, and calling for the company to try to fix it.

The complaint also spends a lot of time arguing that Meta promotes harmful content, such as content promoting eating disorders to youth." But, again, as we've detailed, multiple studies found that when Instagram tried to block that content, teens quickly found ways around it by adjusting their language. And when Instagram went even further in trying to block it, the teens who wanted to engage with eating disorder content just moved elsewhere (to TikTok and to specialized eating disorder forums, which had even less control). Even worse, by moving those discussions off of Meta, many of those conversations lost the powerful responses from people who had recovered from eating disorders, who were participating in the discussions on Instagram and trying to guide people to more helpful resources.

In other words, this shit is complicated, and Instagram's attempts to stop sharing eating disorder content almost certainly made eating disorder situations worse, not better, not because of any nefarious plan on the part of Meta, but because there's a demand problem. A bunch of teens were looking for those conversations, and were going to have them with or without Meta's assistance.

So, basically, the states are suing Meta for surfacing the larger societal problems regarding teenage eating disorders that the states themselves have failed to deal with.

Then there's a large part (again heavily redacted) of the complaint alleging COPPA violations. When I saw that section, at first I thought it sounded like the more serious part of the complaint. At least there's a clear law there, and violating it can get you into trouble.

But, reading through it, I'm again left confused. COPPA has some specific rules regarding how you handle collection of data on those under 13 for sites targeted at those under 13. Like many websites, Meta's solution to this is to say no one under the age of 13 is allowed on the site. In practice, this just means that kids are taught by their parents to lie.

But, rather than realize that maybe that's the problem, the states are blaming Meta for not magically figuring out that kids (often with their parents' help) are lying. It makes a big deal over the fact that Instagram didn't start even asking people their ages until 2019, but again, the law does not require that at all. It applies to sites that are deliberately targeting children under that age, not those that magically fail to keep all such kids out. But the state AGs act as if the law requires some sort of age verification scheme:

Eventually, in response to pressure from regulators and the public, Meta purported to implement an age gate as part Instagram's account registration process-but the term gate" was a misnomer because it did not prevent under-13 users from creating and using Instagram accounts

Indeed, the complaint seems to argue that age verification is required. Which is just flat out false:

Meta has access to, and chooses not to use, feasible alternative age verification methods that would significantly reduce or eliminate the number of underage users on Meta's Social Media Platforms, for example, by requiring young users to submit student IDs upon registration.

There is, as noted, a lot in the complaint that is redacted. So perhaps there are some important nefarious details hidden under all that black ink. I wouldn't put it past Meta to be lying about stuff. And maybe some of it rises to the level of an issue for which its reasonable to face a crackdown from the states.

But, from what's public, this lawsuit seems like a joke, driven by grandstanding AGs who have bought into the current moral panic and need some headlines.

Of course, Meta being Meta, the company's response to this lawsuit is... also less than convincing. The comments its released to the press were more or less well, kids use YouTube and TikTok more than Facebook/Instagram, so why are the states picking on us?" Which is not the most compelling of responses.