Dozens of States Sue Meta: Exploring the National Debate on Child Safety Online

Tuesday - October 31 2023, 17:18 UTC - 1 year ago

On October 24, dozens of states sued Meta for allegedly misleading young users, harvesting their data, and violating federal laws on children’s privacy and consumer protection. This controversial case also serves as a stress-test of existing privacy law and will have a sweeping impact on the national debate about child safety online. To better understand this case, I called up a reporter and cultural critic by the name of Jessica DeFino to discuss topics such as psychological health and Instagram Face (a term coined to describe the way that Instagram filters have inspired real-world procedures and surgeries).

Dozens of states sued Meta on October 24, claiming that the company knowingly harms young users. The case is a pretty big deal and will almost certainly have a sweeping impact on the national debate about child safety online—a topic regular readers know I’ve covered quite a bit. Potentially, it could lead to policy and platform changes. The case is also poised to stress-test existing privacy law that protects minors’ data .

Some of its core allegations are that Meta misleads young users about safety features and the pervasiveness of harmful content on platforms, and that it harvests their data and violates federal laws on children’s privacy and consumer protection. The case grew out of an investigation triggered largely by Frances Haugen’s whistleblowing in 2021, which revealed damning evidence that Meta knew Instagram has detrimental effects on the mental health of young girls .

(If you want to know more, there’s been a lot of good writing about the case in recent days. I’d recommend reading Casey Newton’s newsletter to understand the evidence we do have and why this case matters.) The case against Meta specifically calls out visual tools "known to promote body dysmorphia" as one of the "psychologically manipulative platform features designed to maximize young users’ time spent on its social media platforms .

" It also says that "Meta was aware that young users’ developing brains are particularly vulnerable to certain forms of manipulation, and it chose to exploit those vulnerabilities through targeted features," like filters. To better understand what’s going on here and what to expect from the case, I called up someone I consider a real expert: Jessica DeFino, a reporter and cultural critic who focuses on how beauty culture, online and otherwise, affects individuals .

(She also writes a searing and worthwhile Substack newsletter called The Unpublishable.) Here’s some of our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity. From the standpoint of psychological health, there are definitely studies and surveys that show that teen girls specifically, but also women across the age spectrum, are experiencing higher instances of appearance-related anxiety, depression, body dysmorphia, facial dysmorphia, obsessive beauty behaviors, disordered eating, self-harm, and even suicide .

And there's a lot that can be traced back in one way or another to this increasingly visual virtual world that we exist in. On the more material side of things, there is a lot happening in the beauty industry that has been specifically inspired by Instagram. I think a really great example of this is the phenomenon of Instagram face, which is basically a term that’s been coined to describe the way that Instagram filters have inspired real-world procedures and surgeries .

I tell this story all the time because it was just so shocking to me and such a strong example of what’s happening in the medical world in response to Instagram filters: I was interviewing this cosmetic injector, a doctor and dermatologist named Anna Guanche, at an event hosted by Allergan, the makers of Botox Cosmetic, with a small group of journalists. She said, “Let me tell you what my patients are asking for now .

People, mainly women, look at Instagram and they love their filters because they smooth out their skin, they make them look a lot more plump and package-like, and they're asking me to give them those same results.” .