A bipartisan group of state attorneys general said on Thursday that they had opened an investigation into Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, for promoting its social media app, while knowing of mental and emotional harms caused by the service.
California, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee and Vermont are involved in the investigation.
The states are looking at whether the company's actions violated state consumer protection laws and put the public at risk, according to the Massachusetts attorney general.
Ms. Healey said that Facebook has failed to protect young people on its platforms and instead chose to ignore or double down on known manipulation that pose a real threat to physical and mental health.
The move comes after a trove of documents from a former employee detailed research inside of the social media company that suggested teenagers suffered body image issues when usingInstagram. The documents were shared with journalists. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the issues with the help of a whistle-blower.
The states will examine the techniques used by Meta to increase the engagement of young users and the harms caused by such extended engagement, according to the Nebraska attorney general.
When social media platforms treat our kids as mere commodities to manipulate for longer screen time engagement and data extraction, it becomes imperative for state attorneys general to engage our investigative authority under our consumer protection laws.
The Facebook Papers show a company struggling to deal with many issues that come as a result of its enormous scale and billions of users, covering topics like misinformation, addiction and manipulation of users around the world. Detailed reports about the issues were laid out by the company's research division.
Meta said the research efforts are intended to address the issues they pinpointed, with the aim of improving the company's products and services.
The documents show that a third of the teenage girls who already felt bad about their bodies said that social media made them feel worse. The documents said that comparing on social media can change how young women view themselves.
Meta disagrees with the characterization of the initial reporting on the issues on the social network.
Representatives for Meta didn't respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
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