A lawsuit alleging that Meta platforms including Facebook and Instagram pose a risk to children can move forward, a federal court in California ruled on Tuesday.
The multi-district litigation involves hundreds of complaints filed by school districts, personal injury plaintiffs, local government entities, and 34 states, according to an Oct. 15 order from the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California.
The suit accuses Meta of violating consumer protection laws by “designing and deploying platform features it knew were harmful to young users and misleading and concealing from the public its knowledge of this harm.”
The states also specifically allege that Meta breached the Children’s Online Privacy and Protection Act (COPPA) by collecting data on youngsters below the age of 13 years without first obtaining consent from their parents….