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A recently unsealed lawsuit alleged Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company of Facebook, has diabolically crafted its social media platforms to ensnare children. 

According to a 233-page complaint filed in the US District Court of Northern California on October 24 by the attorneys general of 33 states Meta through its’ Social Media Platforms, Facebook and Instagram has “profoundly altered the psychological and social realities of a generation of young Americans.”

For-profit, Meta is accused of harnessing “powerful and unprecedented technologies to entice, engage and ultimately ensnare youth and teens.” And for over a decade, Meta has “repeatedly misled the public about the substantial dangers of its Social Media Platforms.”

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Social Media Platforms underage users

The documents, described in reports by The Wall Street Journal suggest Meta knew about millions of complaints regarding underage users on Instagram. And consciously chose not to disclose the extent of the issue, disabling only a fraction of the reported accounts.

Amidst this scandal, dozens of U.S. states, including California, Ohio, Louisiana, Virginia and New York, are taking legal action against Meta Platforms Inc. 

The allegations focus on the company's purported contribution to the youth mental health crisis by designing features on Instagram and Facebook explicitly intended to addict children to their platforms.

In response to these accusations, Meta released a statement asserting that the legal complaint misrepresents the company's decade-long effort to create a safe online environment for teenagers. 

The tech giant further denied intentionally designing its products to be addictive for younger users. However, Meta has yet to provide a comment on the unredacted complaint following a request from The Associated Press.

The unsealed documents cite that company insiders developed a deliberate strategy to exploit vulnerabilities in youthful psychology. And took advantage of children’s impulsive behavior, susceptibility to peer pressure, and a tendency to underestimate risks. 

Facebook and Instagram, according to the complaint, were found to be popular among children under the age of 13, a demographic explicitly prohibited by company policy.

Negative impacts ignored by Meta

An email from a Facebook safety executive in 2019 hinted at the potential negative impact on the company's business if stricter measures were imposed on younger users. 

However, a year later, the same executive expressed frustration over the company's lack of enthusiasm for proactively identifying and removing underage users from its platforms, despite readily studying their usage patterns for business purposes.

Highlighting the scale of the issue, the legal complaint exposed that Meta Platforms often have a backlog of up to 2.5 million accounts of younger children awaiting action. 

This raises serious questions about the company's commitment to safeguarding the well-being of its youngest users.

As the legal battle unfolds, this revelation sheds light on the darker side of social media platforms and prompts a critical examination of the responsibility tech giants have in shaping the digital experiences of the most vulnerable demographic - our children.