The Meta Lawsuit: Will it Spark Change or Fade as Just Another Legal Firework? 

Grace Pilz* 

On October 24, 2023, attorneys general representing thirty-three states filed a lawsuit against Meta Platforms, Inc. in federal district court in California.¹ Eight other attorneys general simultaneously filed related but separate lawsuits against Meta in their own state-level courts.² The joint lawsuit alleges that the social media giant, through its flagship platforms Facebook and Instagram, has exploited children to maximize its profits while misleading the public about its role in the youth mental health crisis.³ Though Meta and other social media companies like TikTok and YouTube have drawn the ire of lawmakers with increasing regularity over the last few years, Congressional browbeating has yielded surprisingly few meaningful checks on their power.⁴ And, as certain insiders have indicated, the companies cannot be counted on to police themselves when it comes to issues like privacy, safety, and misinformation on their platforms.⁵

This point was never more obvious than when Frances Haugen blew the whistle on Facebook in 2021. Despite maintaining a civic-integrity team (which Haugen worked on) that was dedicated to issues like child safety on its platforms, Facebook leadership evidently had a de facto policy of inaction when it came to actually remedying those issues.⁶ Effectively hamstrung by her own bosses, Haugen released thousands of internal documents detailing just how much Facebook knew about the problems plaguing its platform.⁷ The resultant firestorm continues to burn bright today: Haugen’s revelation prompted nearly every attorney general in the nation to begin investigating Meta, and the culmination of those investigations is the 233-page complaint filed in California.⁸

Onlookers wonder whether the suit will be just another slap on the wrist for Meta, or if it will succeed in finally disrupting the status quo. I’ll go out on a limb here and posit that it is tough to say at this juncture. For starters, much of the complaint is redacted, which obviously precludes any in-depth evaluation of the claims. Plus, the lack of direction from Congress limits the plaintiffs to bringing somewhat general arguments under various states’ Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices (UDAP) statutes, many of which have been characterized as being too weak to fulfill their function of protecting consumers.⁹ At least one commentator has interpreted the complaint’s focus on unfairness and deception as evidence of the lawsuit being “not serious enough,” with its reliance on “familiar, flawed tropes” reading “somewhat like a publicity stunt.”¹⁰ Although this weariness is understandable, the nascent suit deserves a bit more credit than that. After all, there are compelling allegations that Meta designed and deployed technologies like infinite scroll and recommendation algorithms for the express purpose of keeping young users engaged, and then it turned around and downplayed or denied the detrimental effects that excessive social media use has on those same users.¹¹

The complaint does not stop there. The attorneys general also assert that Meta’s business practices are illegal under the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA),¹² which “prohibits unfair or deceptive acts or practices in connection with the collection, use, and/or disclosure of personal information from and about children on the internet.”¹³ It is worth emphasizing that COPPA does not prohibit data collection from children outright.¹⁴ Instead, the core requirement of COPPA is that any operator of a website or online service directed to children under the age of thirteen, or any operator that has actual knowledge that it is collecting personal data from children, must first obtain verifiable parental consent to collect, use, or disclose the child’s personal information.¹⁵ Operators that satisfy this requirement must then comply with various notice, usage, and disclosure restrictions with regard to the collected information.¹⁶

In the view of thirty-three states, Meta has “flouted its obligations” under COPPA by marketing and directing its platforms to children under the age of thirteen; having actual knowledge that children use Facebook and Instagram; and refusing to obtain (or even attempt to obtain) parents’ consent.¹⁷ This allegation comes across as more concrete than those arising under state UDAP laws because COPPA—as opposed to being a general consumer protection law—is directly on point in this case and the legal standard is far clearer than trying to prove Meta operated “unfairly,” “deceptively,” or “unconscionably.” Nevertheless, the COPPA claim has been criticized as “a bit ridiculous” on the ground that, “to prove that Meta knows that kids use its apps, this suit cites the simple fact that various kid-oriented brands and media personalities (Lego, Hot Wheels, SpongeBob SquarePants, JoJo Siwa) have Instagram pages.”¹⁸ Yet the Federal Trade Commission explicitly identifies the “use of animated characters or child-oriented activities and incentives” and the “presence of child celebrities or celebrities who appeal to children” as two factors to consider in determining whether an online service is “directed to children” for COPPA purposes.¹⁹

Legal minutiae aside, it’s plain to see that the public is, and will continue to be, following the case closely. While reasonable minds may differ as to the merits of the suit, one thing can be agreed upon by all: the stakes are higher than ever. This year, the U.S. Surgeon General reported that nearly 40 percent of children aged eight to twelve years use social media and that “there are ample indicators that social media can also have a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents.”²⁰ This problem is not going away anytime soon. It’s high time we stop pointing fingers and start taking action to protect kids online. 

* Grace Pilz, J.D. Candidate, University of St. Thomas School of Law Class of 2025, Associate Editor of the University of St. Thomas Law Journal.

1. Allison Grande, State AGs Say Meta Purposely Hooks Kids on Social Media, Law360 (Oct. 24, 2023, 12:57 PM), https://www.law360.com/articles/1736030?fromlnh=true. ↩︎
2. Id. ↩︎
3. Complaint at 1, California v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 4:2023cv05448 (N.D. Cal. filed Oct. 24, 2023). ↩︎
4. See Tim Wu, Why Congress Keeps Failing to Protect Kids Online, Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/10/protect-children-online-social-media-internet/675825/ (Nov. 1, 2023, 1:27 PM). ↩︎
5. Id. ↩︎
6. See Billy Perrigo, How Facebook Forced a Reckoning by Shutting Down the Team That Put People Ahead of Profits, TIME (Oct. 7, 2021, 11:35 AM), https://time.com/6104899/facebook-reckoning-frances-haugen/. ↩︎
7. Id. ↩︎
8. See Alexandra S. Levine, Bipartisan State Attorneys General Launch Investigation into Meta, Politico (Nov. 18, 2021, 5:37 PM), https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/18/attorney-general-meta-investigation-522991. ↩︎
9. Carolyn Carter, Nat’l Consumer Law Ctr., Consumer Protection in the States: A 50-State Evaluation of Unfair and Deceptive Practices Laws 1 (2018). ↩︎
10. See Kaitlyn Tiffany, The Huge Multistate Lawsuit Against Meta Isn’t Serious Enough, Atlantic (Oct. 27, 2023), https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/10/states-meta-lawsuit-facebook-instagram-child-mental-health-crisis/675820/. ↩︎
11. Complaint at 23, California v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 4:2023cv05448 (N.D. Cal. filed Oct. 24, 2023). ↩︎
12. Complaint at 105, California v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 4:2023cv05448 (N.D. Cal. filed Oct. 24, 2023). ↩︎
13. 16 C.F.R. § 312.1 (2023). ↩︎
14. 1 Megan Costello, Data Security & Privacy Law § 9:84 (2023). ↩︎
15. 15 U.S.C. § 6502. ↩︎
16. 16 C.F.R. § 312.3 (2023). ↩︎
17. Complaint at 3, California v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 4:2023cv05448 (N.D. Cal. filed Oct. 24, 2023). ↩︎
18. Tiffany, supra note 10. ↩︎
19. 16 C.F.R. § 312.2 (2023). ↩︎
20. Off. of the Surgeon Gen., Social Media and Youth Mental Health: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory 4 (2023). ↩︎