Tag: facebook

Meta Whistleblower Testifies Meta Took ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Approach to Child Safety

A former Meta safety engineer told a federal jury this week that company leaders repeatedly received warnings about harm to children on Facebook and Instagram and largely failed to act.

Quartz reports that Arturo Béjar, who worked as a safety engineer at Meta, testified that the company operated under what he described as a “don’t ask, don’t tell” philosophy toward child safety. He said internal studies showed children encountering harmful material at elevated rates, including recommendations that surfaced content from sexual predators and graphic violent images. Béjar said he brought these findings to Facebook and Instagram executives multiple times, and those conversations produced little meaningful change.

Béjar also testified that during his second stint at Meta, from 2019 to 2021, the company replaced the term “addiction” with “problematic use,” a framing he said did not meet the thresholds academic researchers use to define addiction. He said the metrics Meta made public gave a false picture of safety because they measured violations of content policies rather than actual harm experienced by users.

Béjar told the jury that in 2021 he emailed Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg after Zuckerberg publicly stated that the company does not prioritize profit over safety. “I felt that he created a false and misleading impression of Facebook’s commitment to young people,” Béjar testified. He said he briefed Zuckerberg on product issues at least 100 times during his tenure at the company.

Béjar was the first witness called in the trial, which opened Tuesday in federal court in Oakland, California, before U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. The case was brought by 29 state attorneys general who allege Meta intentionally designed Facebook and Instagram to be addictive to minors, collected data on children under 13 without parental consent in violation of the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, and misled the public about platform safety. Opening arguments were delivered by lawyers representing California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey.

Meta attorney Paul Schmidt argued that the states had selectively quoted internal documents to build a misleading narrative. He pointed to the company’s safety measures, including parental controls, privacy defaults for teenage users, and reminders encouraging users to limit time on the app.

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Meta Faces Unprecedented Legal Reckoning Over Youth Mental Health As Massive Multistate Trial Begins

Meta Platforms is facing a critical juncture in its battle over youth online safety. Just weeks after suffering a massive legal defeat in New Mexico, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram is now defending itself in a California federal court against a bipartisan coalition of 29 states. The states say Meta deliberately designed its platforms to addict children and harvested their data in violation of federal law.

The California Showdown

A sweeping multistate trial opens Tuesday in Oakland, California, overseen by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. Attorneys for Colorado, California, New Jersey and Kentucky – leading a bipartisan group of 29 states – will deliver opening statements. Those four states’ claims about addictive design and deceptive marketing are what this trial tests, while all 29 states are involved over data-harvesting claims. 

Interestingly – the eight-person jury hearing the case won’t actually decide it. Rogers empaneled it in a purely advisory capacity, which is rare. The jurors will answer specific questions she selects, and she is free to disregard their findings entirely when she issues her ruling after the trial concludes in October, Reuters reports.

The states argue that features like infinite scroll were purposely engineered to keep young users hooked, that Meta misled the public about the safety of its platforms for adolescents, and that the company improperly collected and monetized children’s personal data in violation of federal law.

The financial exposure is the largest of any case Meta has faced. The company has warned that maximum statutory penalties could theoretically reach $1.4 trillion, while the attorneys general have indicated they may seek around $200 billion.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week found that 85 percent of Americans believe social media can be addictive for children.

Beyond money, the coalition wants nationwide structural changes: age restrictions, deletion of algorithms and AI models built with children’s data, elimination of infinite scroll and notifications, strict time limits for young users, and an algorithm retuned to prioritize well-being over engagement. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram head Adam Mosseri are both expected to testify, alongside former employees and outside experts.

What Happened In New Mexico

The multistate trial arrives on the heels of a devastating legal blow in New Mexico. On Aug. 6, State Judge Bryan Biedscheid ruled that Meta had created a public nuisance and ordered the company to pay $567 million into a youth mental health fund, allocating $420 million to treatment, $90 million to screening and assessment, $33 million to prevention and awareness, and $15 million to referrals and care coordination over five years. The award followed a $375 million penalty a New Mexico jury imposed in March for violations of the state’s Unfair Practices Act.

The award fell well short of New Mexico’s request. The state had sought $1 billion toward a $3.7 billion plan to expand children’s mental health services.

“The Court finds that the weight of the evidence presented demonstrates that Meta’s platforms are a cause of and substantial contributing factor to the youth mental health crisis in New Mexico.”

Biedscheid compared the platforms to a polluting factory, writing that the harms “do not stay contained” but migrate “to the real world” and burden families, schools, hospitals and law enforcement.

The order, a win for New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez, also imposes five years of operational changes: monthly limits on teen use of Facebook and Instagram, restrictions on notifications, tighter controls on adult contact with minors, safeguards for AI chatbots, and enhanced review of child sexual abuse reports. Meta must file written progress reports twice a year. The template is now sitting in front of the 29-state coalition.

Meta’s Defense

Meta plans to appeal the New Mexico ruling and maintains that the attorneys general in the California trial are chasing an “outlandish payout” without proof of actual harm. “We remain confident in our record of protecting teens online and will continue to defend ourselves against claims that misrepresent the facts,” the company said after the New Mexico decision.

The company argues it has invested heavily in creating a safe environment for teens, employing child safety experts and deploying technology to root out predators and harmful content. Company spokespeople have characterized the state lawsuits as an attempt to penalize Meta for industry-wide problems, such as the complexities of age verification.

The litigation traces back to 2021, when whistleblower Frances Haugen testified before the U.S. Senate and provided internal documents indicating Meta knew its platforms could harm young users but prioritized engagement over safety.

Meta is not alone. Alongside Snap, TikTok parent ByteDance and YouTube parent Alphabet, it faces more than 3,000 federal lawsuits consolidated before Rogers and another 3,300 pending in Los Angeles state court. Eight states, including Tennessee and Arkansas, opted out of the federal case and filed in their own courts. Tennessee’s trial is already underway.

Meta has told investors that legal and regulatory blowback over youth safety “could significantly impact our business and financial results.”

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States take Meta to trial in California in the biggest fight yet over social media harms to children

Of the thousands of lawsuits Meta faces over child safety on its platforms, none may be more consequential than one going to trial this week in California.

States are seeking extensive financial damages that could, in theory, total as much as $1.4 trillion, plus changes to how the company operates Facebook and Instagram.

The lawsuit accuses the social media giant of contributing to the youth mental health crisis by knowingly and deliberately designing features that get children addicted to its platforms. It also claims that Meta routinely collects data on children under 13 without their parents’ consent, in violation of federal law.

“Meta has harnessed powerful and unprecedented technologies to entice, engage, and ultimately ensnare youth and teens. Its motive is profit, and in seeking to maximize its financial gains,” the lawsuit says.

Dozens of states filed the lawsuit three years ago. The trial set to begin Tuesday in federal court in Oakland, California, features four of the states as plaintiffs — California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey. The other 25 states are expected to have trials later.

Meta said it disputes the allegations, and the trial evidence will show its commitment to supporting young people. “We’ve listened to parents, worked with experts and law enforcement, and conducted in-depth research to understand the issues that matter most,” the company said in a statement.

States seek to land a major blow against Meta
For Meta, which already lost two pivotal cases over harms to children and teens this year, the stakes are high. The company reported a rare profit decline last month, in part due to $2.4 billion in legal expenses.

The $1.4 trillion figure, which Meta disclosed in a legal filing, is almost as high as the Menlo Park, California, company’s entire market capitalization — that is, the value of all its outstanding shares on the stock market. Paying it would inevitably put Meta Platforms in bankruptcy and perhaps put the company under state ownership.

“The state attorneys general are going for the gusto,” said Eric Goldman, a professor and co-director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law. “They are trying to set the definitive precedent in this case and they have asked for extraordinary damages and they are going to seek extraordinary structural remedies if they succeed.”

Meta calls the possible penalty “untethered to any claimed violation” by the states.

“A sanction of that size has no analog in the history of consumer protection enforcement,” Meta said in a July 6 filing with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

If Meta loses the trial, the court would have wide discretion over the size of any financial penalty, and legal experts say anything close to $1.4 trillion would be unlikely.

“It’s not plausible in the sense that Meta doesn’t have that much money and could not get it,” said James Grimmelmann, a law professor at Cornell Law School and Cornell Tech. “An award that large would put Meta into bankruptcy, wipe out its owners, and effectively result in the states owning Meta.”

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Meta Faces Criminal Complaint in Germany for Its AI-Glasses, Accused of Violating Privacy Laws

Who wants to be filmed all the time?

The struggle between new, useful tech gadgets and the objections that these new capabilities raise is a field expected to grow in the next few years, and make many lawyers very wealthy.

One such example is the Meta AI-Glasses.

In principle, it seems a great idea to pack so much computing power in a pair of glasses for our benefit.

But once you start to compute the legal and ethical objections that this gadget raises, it becomes a much less clear question.

Today (12), a German advocacy group took matters into their own hands, and filed a criminal complaint against Meta and other companies, ‘arguing the devices violate privacy laws’.

Reuters reported:

“Digital rights group HateAid said in a statement on Wednesday that the launch of the devices, the Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer in particular, broke German digital privacy laws, in the latest sign of legal scrutiny in a nation where the right to privacy is highly valued.

‘There’s no place to escape from smart glasses. You have to expect at any moment to be filmed and then exposed on the internet’, said HateAid managing director Josephine Ballon.

The organization reported the management of Meta, units of spectacles maker EssilorLuxottica including Ray-Ban, as well as retailers Fielmann, Apollo-Optik, Mister Spex and MediaMarkt to the Frankfurt-based digital crime prosecution unit ZIT.”

The complaint is based on Germany’s federal digital data protection law, which prohibits the sale of communication devices designed to film people without them noticing.

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Zuckerberg manifesto sketches out Meta’s ambitions for world-changing AI technology

Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg laid out a vision Monday of what he said artificial intelligence can do for the world, imagining a future where everyone has their own, all-knowing AI agent that strives to improve all aspects of their lives.

Zuckerberg detailed his ambitions for the technology in a 6,500-word essay published online where he also outlined why he favors open-source AI technology, in which developers make key components accessible for anyone to examine, modify and build upon.

In a document derided by critics as fantastical, Zuckerberg said his company is working toward an era where everyone will have the tools to create new businesses, receive Ph.D.-level tutoring and provide personalized lifestyle tips. His 8-year-old daughter, he wrote, can already code her ideas and quickly produce videos.

“Everyone will soon have invention superpowers,” Zuckerberg wrote.

Zuckerberg warned of risks if control of advanced AI is concentrated with a select few companies, institutions or governments. On Monday, Meta also announced the release a new open-source AI model, Muse Glimmer, which can run on a personal computer, and Zuckerberg said the company would also would provide a way for developers to access a more powerful AI model, Muse Spark 1.2.

Meta makes AI models, like several other tech companies, and uses them to power platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. The Menlo Park, California, company also makes them available to developers who can create their own apps and features.

Skeptics urge a slower pace of AI development
Critics said Zuckerberg was not reckoning fully with the risks inherent in AI’s rapid development.

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Appeals Court Allows Thousands of Social Media Addiction Lawsuits Against Meta, TikTok, Google to Continue

A federal appeals court ruled Monday that more than 3,000 lawsuits accusing Meta, TikTok, Google, Snap and other tech companies of deliberately designing addictive platforms for young users can proceed.

Time reports that the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the thousands of lawsuits, filed by states, municipalities, school districts and individuals, can move forward in district court. The plaintiffs allege that addictive algorithms and insufficient safeguards against harmful content have contributed to rising rates of depression, anxiety and body image issues among young people.

The cases had been consolidated before U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, who ruled in 2023 and 2024 that most of the litigation could proceed. Meta and TikTok appealed those orders, arguing they were shielded from liability under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996, a federal law that generally protects companies from being sued over content posted by users.

In a 24-page opinion, Judge Jacqueline Nguyen wrote that Section 230 provides a “defense to liability,” not blanket immunity from lawsuits. During oral arguments in January, Nguyen had signaled skepticism toward the companies’ position, saying, “When Congress wants to give immunity from suit, it knows how to say that.” Plaintiffs have argued that the law does not shield claims focused on how companies intentionally designed and operated their products.

The appeals court did not decide whether Section 230 bars those product-design claims, ruling instead that the appeal was premature because the trial court’s decision was not final. That question, which could shape other litigation against tech companies, remains unresolved. The lawsuits will continue in district court, where plaintiffs are seeking damages, civil penalties and restitution.

Separately, roughly 3,300 similar cases are being coordinated in California state court. In the first bellwether trial in March, a Los Angeles jury awarded $6 million to a 20-year-old woman who said she developed depression, anxiety and body dysmorphia after becoming addicted to Instagram and YouTube as a child. The jury found Meta and Google negligent in designing their platforms and failing to warn of the risks. TikTok and Snap had settled with the plaintiff before trial. All companies have denied the allegations and filed appeals.

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Online News Act left rural Canadians without credible information during wildfires: report

The report, first detailed by Blacklock’s Reporter, examined the consequences of Meta’s decision to block Canadian news from Facebook and Instagram following Parliament’s passage of Bill C-18.

The legislation was designed to compel large digital platforms to compensate Canadian publishers for news content. Meta responded by blocking news content from its platforms in Canada.

Researchers from the University of British Columbia said the consequences were particularly serious in rural communities, where Facebook had become a major source of local information during emergencies.

“Rural B.C. communities lost access to credible journalism at the precise moment they needed it most,” researchers wrote, citing consequences for public safety, trust and compliance with emergency instructions.

The study, “When Good Intentions Cause Harm: The Online News Act, Meta’s News Ban And Public Safety During Wildfire Emergencies,” examined wildfire coverage in several B.C. communities.

Researchers said removing journalism from Facebook did not eliminate information about the fires. Instead, personal accounts and emotionally charged material remained and were amplified on the platform, contributing to community outrage and conspiracy theories.

The report blamed the problem on a combination of declining institutional trust, social media algorithms and the disappearance of credible journalism from Facebook.

Researchers also criticized mainstream news coverage, saying the absence of local reporters with established community relationships made newsrooms increasingly dependent on governments and other “official voices.”

“Media were producing a version of wildfire events in which affected communities were compliance problems rather than people in crisis,” the report said.

The researchers noted an irony at the centre of the controversy: declining local journalism was partly caused by the advertising-market changes Bill C-18 was supposed to address, but the legislation ultimately contributed to credible journalism disappearing from one of the platforms rural Canadians relied upon most.

Blacklock’s was among the independent Canadian outlets that opposed the Online News Act, arguing it amounted to federal interference in the news marketplace. The outlet says it neither sought nor accepted payments available under the legislation.

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Court Orders Meta to Pay $567 Million Over Child Harm

A court on Thursday ordered Meta to pay $567 million into a fund over child harm.

New Mexico Judge Bryan Biedscheid compared Meta to air pollution and called it a “public nuisance.”

“Although Meta is not alone in this regard, its social media platforms are a significant contributing factor to the current mental health crisis among New Mexico’s youth established by the substantial evidence in this case,” Judge Bryan Biedscheid wrote in the ruling on Thursday, CNBC reported.

KCRA reported:

A New Mexico court has ordered Instagram and Facebook parent company Meta to pay $567 million to address harms to young people from its platforms in the second phase of a landmark trial the social media giant lost in March.

In a ruling late Thursday, Judge Bryan Biedcheid said the bulk of the money — $420 million — will be used for treatment services for young people. The rest will go toward awareness and prevention, screening services and other costs over the next five years.

In the first phase, jurors had ordered $375 million in civil penalties against Meta, determining that it knowingly harmed children’s mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its platforms.

In the second phase, prosecutors had asked the judge to impose fundamental changes at Meta aimed at reining in addictive features, improving age verification and preventing child sexual exploitation through default privacy settings and closer oversight.

In March, a Los Angeles, California, jury found that Meta and YouTube were liable for a teen’s mental health and awarded her $3 million in damages.

The plaintiff, a 20-year-old woman identified as KGM or “Kaley,” said she became addicted to Meta’s app Instagram and Google’s YouTube as a child.

KGM said she developed body dysmorphia and had suicidal ideations because of her addiction to the social media platforms.

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Instagram to Ban Creeps Filming Harassment Videos with Meta Smart Glasses

Instagram has announced a new policy prohibiting videos captured with Meta smart glasses that feature harassment of strangers in public spaces, targeting creeps who film pranks and pickup attempts without clear consent. Meta’s smart glasses have picked up the nickname “pervert glasses” due to their misuse.

Business Insider reports that Instagram head Adam Mosseri revealed the platform’s crackdown on certain types of content filmed using Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses in a recent Instagram story response. The new policy specifically targets videos showing harassment of unsuspecting individuals in public locations, including the controversial pickup artist videos and prank content that have proliferated on social media platforms.

“If you’re posting content that is taking advantage of people and harassing them, like a lot of these pickup line kind of videos that we’ve heard of and seen, then we’re going to take the content down,” Mosseri stated. “We don’t want people to be surreptitiously taking videos of other people and harassing them and then posting them on our platform. So we’re trying to fight that every way we can.”

The policy change comes after increasing concerns about the misuse of Meta’s smart glasses technology for creating questionable content. There is a growing trend of videos appearing on TikTok and Instagram Reels where content creators film themselves executing pranks on service industry workers while wearing the glasses. These pranks often cross the line into harassment territory, with examples including incidents where creators spray fart spray into candles at retail stores and then ask employees to smell them.

Following the policy announcement, Business Insider discovered that at least two major accounts belonging to pickup artists who filmed themselves approaching women while wearing Meta glasses had been deactivated. Both accounts previously boasted followings exceeding one million users. A Meta spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider that these accounts were removed for violating the new policy regarding harassing content filmed with the smart glasses.

However, details about the policy’s enforcement mechanisms remain unclear. Meta has not provided specific information about what exactly constitutes a violation under the new rules or how the company plans to systematically identify and remove offending content.

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Judge Denies Immunity to Texas Cops in Meme Arrest Case

A federal judge has refused to throw out the civil rights lawsuit filed by a Texas journalist arrested over a satirical Facebook meme and declined to grant qualified immunity to the sheriff and investigator who put him in jail.

Chief US District Judge Reed O’Connor ruled on July 20 that Kolton Krottinger’s suit can move forward against Hood County Sheriff Roger Deeds and former deputy James Luckie.

We obtained a copy of the ruling for you here.

O’Connor wrote that Krottinger “sufficiently alleged that Luckie and Sheriff Deeds violated his clearly established rights to be free from arrest without probable cause, malicious prosecution, and First Amendment Retaliation.”

The ruling keeps alive claims of First Amendment retaliation, unlawful arrest, malicious prosecution, and Fourth Amendment violations.

Qualified immunity shields officers from suit unless they broke rights already clearly established in law, and it ends most cases of this kind before they reach discovery. O’Connor found that Krottinger cleared that bar.

Krottinger, a 36-year-old Navy veteran, runs several Hood County news pages on Facebook and a nonprofit, Anxiety Solutions of America, that operates a 21-acre ranch for veterans and first responders. Governor Greg Abbott named him an honorary admiral of the Texas Navy in January 2025.

His arrest traces to a satire image posted to a satirical page called Hood County Sheepdogs during a Granbury school board race. The meme made it look as though Tina Brown, a regular speaker at county commissioners’ meetings, had endorsed a candidate she actually opposed. Brown reported the post on October 6, saying she had not made it.

C.J. Grisham, a First Amendment attorney representing Krottinger, said the meme was meant “to poke fun at the two people who can’t stand each other…endorsing that person. That’s the joke of it.”

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