Did Meta Tell a Little Bitty Lie?
December 8, 2025
Meta lied about the danger of its services and products? SHOCK! GASP! Who would have guessed? Everyone did! In an article from the legendary magazine Time comes the story: “Court Filings Allege Meta Downplayed Risks To Children And Misled The Public.”
The lawsuit was filed in the Northern District of California and alleges that Meta, Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok purposely ignored strange adults contacting minors, denied that that social media exacerbates mental health issues in teens, and allowed content related to child sex abuse, suicide, and eating disorder to be shared. Meta, the case claims, didn’t share this information with Congress and didn’t implement safety features to protect kids.
It’s a painful reality:
“ ‘Meta has designed social media products and platforms that it is aware are addictive to kids, and they’re aware that those addictions lead to a whole host of serious mental health issues,’ says Previn Warren, the co-lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the case. ‘Like tobacco, this is a situation where there are dangerous products that were marketed to kids,’ Warren adds. ‘They did it anyway, because more usage meant more profits for the company.’”
Meta denies the allegations that it pursued profit over safety. Meta did add safety features, including teen accounts with privacy options. It was barely a plug on a leaking dam. Teen accounts didn’t stop the addictive behavior that social media accounts nurture and exploit. It affects the brain like tobacco, alcohol, gambling, and more. Meta could be described a pusher of a “digital drug”.
Meta, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Snapchat conducted research on the psychological ramifications of using social media and they found out:
Around the same time, another user-experience researcher at Instagram allegedly recommended that Meta inform the public about its research findings: ‘Because our product exploits weaknesses in the human psychology to promote product engagement and time spent,’ the researcher wrote, Meta needed to ‘alert people to the effect that the product has on their brain.’ Meta did not.”
If this lawsuit triumphs it will be akin to Big Tobacco losing their case that “tobacco wasn’t addictive and actually had health benefits.” We can hope it wins.
Whitney Grace, December 30, 2025
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