Court filing revealed Mark Zuckerberg was warned about social media addiction

The employees of Metaincluding its founder and president, Mark Zuckerbergand of ByteDancesocial network owner ICT Tacwere aware of the harmful effects of their platforms on children and adolescents, as the agency reported on Monday Bloomberg.

The note, which cites a trialalso points out that the managers of these companies they ignored the information “Or, in some cases, they tried to undermine it.”

The revelations were made public as part of a social media addiction lawsuit that had already been filed, but whose key elements had been hidden from the public. A new version, presented at the weekend in front of a federal court in oakland (California), offers details about what engineers and others, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, knew about social media harm and their apprehensions about it.

“No one wakes up thinking they want to maximize the number of times they open Instagram that day,” a Meta employee wrote in 2021, according to the filing. “But that’s exactly what our product teams are trying to do.”

The Oakland case is a set of dozens of lawsuits filed across the United States on behalf of adolescents and young adults who allege that Facebook, instagram, ICT Tac there Snapchatthey provoked anxiety, depression, eating disorders and insomnia.

These companies have also been accused of more than a dozen suicides, alleging that they knowingly designed algorithms that led children down dangerous and addictive paths. Several public school districts have also filed lawsuits, arguing they cannot fulfill their educational mission as students face mental health crisis.

In their defense, the giants of social networks evoke a 1996 law which grants Internet platforms broad immunity from claims for harmful content posted by users. Both parties are closely following a Supreme Court case which will likely determine the outcome of the litigation in Oakland.

According to the new filing, internal ByteDance documents show that the company knows that young people are more sensitive of being tricked into attempting dangerous stunts they see on the platform – known as viral challenges – because their ability to weigh risk is not fully trained.

Young people are more likely to “overestimate their ability to cope with risk” and their “ability to understand the finality of death is also not fully developed”, according to the presentation.

The agency Bloomberg notes that another unpublished part of the lawsuit argues that instead of addressing issues with children’s use of Instagram and Facebook, Meta canceled funding for its mental health team.

According to the lawsuit, Zuckerberg was personally warned: “We are behind on our core welfare issues (problematic use, bullying and harassment, connections and SSI), and we are exposed to increased regulatory risk and outside criticism. . These issues concern everyone, especially young people and creators; if not addressed, they will follow us into the metaverse.”

A Meta spokesperson said the claim that the company has funded activities to support people’s wellbeing is false.

“In fact, because it’s so important to our business, we’ve increased funding, as evidenced by the more than 30 tools we offer to help teens and families,” the spokesperson said. “Today, hundreds of employees are working across the company to create features for this purpose.”

Snap He made no immediate comment on the court filing. Representatives for TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“These never-before-seen documents show that social media companies are treating the youth mental health crisis as a public relations issue rather than an urgent social issue caused by their products,” according to a statement from the three leading plaintiffs’ attorneys. of the trial. lawsuit, Lexi Hazam, Previn Warren and Chris Seeger. “This includes burying internal investigations documenting this harm, blocking security measures because they diminish ‘engagement,’ and funding teams focused on protecting the mental health of young people.”

The companies have previously said that user safety is a priority and that they have taken positive steps to give parents more control over their children’s use of the platforms and to provide more mental health resources.

(With information from Bloomberg)

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