Meta Platforms lost its bid on June 29 to dismiss a lawsuit brought by more than two dozen state attorneys general that accuses the tech giant of deliberately designing Facebook and Instagram to be addictive for children and misleading users about the alleged harms.
Oakland, California-based U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers rejected Meta’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which made claims of deception, unfairness, and violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, a federal law.
Meta tried to argue that the state attorneys general had no evidence of misleading users about the platforms’ alleged addictiveness, claiming that “social media addiction” is not a legitimate psychiatric diagnosis, and therefore, Facebook and Instagram are not addictive….