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California launched a salacious opening to its hotly anticipated multistate lawsuit against Meta on Tuesday morning, detailing the tech titan\u2019s focus on its preteen users in language that could have been lifted from Vladimir Nabokov\u2019s \u201cLolita.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re going hear how Meta desperately tried to hold on to those kids, how it wanted them so badly, how it wanted them young,\u201d California Deputy Atty. Gen. Megan O\u2019Neill told the eight-member civil jury in Oakland federal court.<\/p>\n
Her voice dripped with innuendo as she read out the title of a company memo: \u201cThe young ones are the best ones.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re going to hear how Meta tried to hook kids under 13, the youngest users,\u201d she said, previewing internal documents that Meta had unsuccessfully fought to keep out of the blockbuster trial\u2019s opening monologue. \u201cThey were looking at tweens. Tweens.\u201d<\/p>\n
A federal judge dealt a blow to Meta just days before a blockbuster trial where the company is accused of developing products that are addictive to children.<\/p>\n
Meta hit back hard in its own opening statements Tuesday afternoon, saying many of the memos and reports the states used to paint them as rapacious were actually evidence of the company\u2019s efforts to protect its youngest users.<\/p>\n
In the case of young children, the law itself prevents Meta from doing more, company lawyers said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe law says, if Meta finds people under the age of 13, it can\u2019t keep their data. So it can\u2019t use the very data that would let it make computer models\u201d to exclude them, said Paul W. Schmidt, one of the lawyers representing Meta.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit is the latest and largest of this year\u2019s groundbreaking actions against the social media giant \u2014 cases that could radically alter how the company operates its platforms and leave Meta on the hook for billions in damages.<\/p>\n
California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey led a coalition of 29 state attorneys general suing Meta over claims the company intentionally designed its platforms to hook children, left in place features it knew to be dangerous, and repeatedly lied to the public about the safety of its products.<\/p>\n
The attorneys general also contend the company violated the federal Children\u2019s Online Privacy Protection Act by mining valuable data from thousands of preteens and grade-schoolers \u2014 youngsters Meta has made limited efforts to remove or restrict from its platforms, despite terms of service that technically bar them.<\/p>\n
Attorneys for Meta and other companies have argued that because social media addiction has not been formally recognized by the medical community, they cannot be held liable when sued over it. But the standard for a diagnosis is changing, and judges have been skeptical of those arguments.<\/p>\n
\u201cMeta harvested kids data. That\u2019s how Meta makes money,\u201d O\u2019Neill said. \u201cWe\u2019re all from the Bay [Area] here \u2014 I think you\u2019ve probably heard the saying, \u2018If you\u2019re not paying for the product, you are the product.\u2019 Kids are the product.\u201d<\/p>\n