A secret lawsuit filed against Meta claims that the company deliberately refused to shut down most accounts belonging to children under the age of 13 at least since 2019 and continued to collect their personal information without parental consent. The complaint states that the company is aware that children under 13 are using its platforms and has been targeting and tracking this demographic for years through Instagram.
The document alleges that the company has long been dishonest about how it handles minor user accounts when discovered, often failing to disable them when reported, and continues to collect their data. The complaint reveals previously amended arguments when attorneys general from across the United States last month filed a lawsuit against Meta in federal court in California. It claims that the presence of children under 13 is an assumed and known secret at Meta.
Policies across Facebook and Instagram stipulate that users must be at least 13 years old to register, although children can easily lie about their ages, something the lawsuit indicates Meta is well aware of and has done little to stop. The complaint states, "Between early 2019 and mid-2023, Meta received over a million reports from parents, friends, and community members about users under the age of 13 on Instagram, and the company disabled only a small portion of those accounts while routinely continuing to collect data from children without parental consent."
Meta routinely violates the 1998 Children's Online Privacy Protection Act by targeting children and collecting their information without parental consent, according to the complaint. It also clarifies that Meta's platforms manipulate young users into spending unhealthy amounts of time on the apps, promote body image distortion, and expose them to potentially harmful content.
Civil penalties could reach hundreds of millions of dollars, as it is claimed that Meta hosts millions of teenage and child users, and most states are seeking to impose fines ranging from $1,000 to $50,000 for each violation. Earlier this month, Meta published a blog post calling for federal legislation to place more responsibility on parents when it comes to downloading apps for children.
