Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in 2018. Image: Anthony Quintano via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
The CEO of Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, had faced accusations that he had ignored and downplayed internal concerns raised about young users.
A judge based in Oakland, California has ruled that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg cannot be held personally liable in 25 separate lawsuits alleging harm caused by social media.
On 7 November, US district judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers rejected accusations that Zuckerberg acted to conceal from child users the mental health risks of using Facebook and Instagram, which both come under the parent organisation Meta.
She submitted her decision via a 10-page filing, according to Business Insider.
The plaintiffs in the case claimed that Zuckerberg ignored a number of repeated internal warnings about the mental health risks posed by his platforms to young users and that he publicly downplayed them.
Specifically, the plaintiffs said that Zuckerberg “served as the guiding spirit behind Meta’s tortious concealment and omissions”, according to the court filing.
The plaintiffs brought claims under the laws of 13 states: Wisconsin, Texas, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Connecticut, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia and Maryland.
Explaining her decision, Gonzalez Rogers said that control of corporate activity alone is not enough to establish liability on the part of Zuckerberg.
Despite this, Previn Warren, a partner at Motley Rice representing the plaintiffs, said on Friday (8 November) that his clients remain determined in pursuing the matter further, in order to “uncover the truth about how Big Tech has knowingly prioritised profits over the safety of our children”.
Meta has been accused of failing to protect its users for some time now. In 2021, whistleblower Frances Haugen shared internal research from the company, which became known as the Facebook Files. One article about these files claimed that Meta had internal research that showed Instagram to be damaging to the mental health and wellbeing of teenage girls.
And last year, another whistleblower – Arturo Béjar – spoke out against the company’s practices, with claims that the tech giant is aware of the harm teenagers face on its platforms but has failed to act.
At the time, Béjar said the platform opted to give users “placebo” tools that fail to address issues such as teenagers seeing harmful content, having their mental health impacted and receiving “unwanted sexual advances” on Instagram.
Other social media platforms such as TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat are also under fire for allegedly targeting young people for revenue despite knowing that they are vulnerable to the addictive features of social media.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in 2018. Image: Anthony Quintano via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
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