A Strategy to Treat Big Tech Like Big Tobacco

from The New York Times I'm Michael babo. this is the. [Music]. daily today a look inside a historic set. of new lawsuits filed by dozens of. States accusing the country's largest. social media company of luring children. onto its platforms and hooking them onto. its. products.

my colleague Natasha Zinger has been. reviewing the state's evidence and. trying to understand the longterm. strategy behind the. [Music]. lawsuits it's Wednesday November. [Music]. 15th Natasha the last time you and I. spoke the state of Utah had just tried. to restrict the use of social media by.

children passed a first of its kind law. today you come to us with something. related but on a vastly different scale. right when we were talking about Utah it. was a single State trying to restrict. social media on behalf of young people. and now what we have good morning. everyone good morning good morning and. thank you for joining me today there is. a youth Mental Health crisis in America.

and we need to act is dozens of States. banding together so today myself and 42. other attorney generals across this. nation are announcing Collective action. in state a kind of astonishing Coalition. of red States like Texas and Tennessee. and blue liberal states like. Massachusetts today my office has filed. a lawsuit against metaform Incorporated. the company formerly known as Facebook. for knowingly Haring the mental health.

of young social media users coming. together to sue meta which is the social. media giant as you know that owns. Instagram and Facebook and WhatsApp. right I do very much see this as a. Public Health crisis in the same way. that uh tobacco was and the scale of. this investigation the way the states. are banding together to investigate and. the kind of parallel lawsuits they filed. is right out of the the big tobacco.

Playbook H meta has been allowed to. addict our children to a product that. interferes with their mental and. physical health so from the point of. view of the attorney's General they have. said they view the case against meta as. a case about severe Health harms and. Hazards to young people in the same way. that states viewed the health hazards. and harms to young people with. cigarettes or Jewel or opioids.

[Music]. of course Natasha the industries you. just mentioned stood accused of quite. literally poisoning people including. children with their products cigarettes. and vaping pens meta is a technology. company so does the parallel to those. Industries kind of end. there so I think the answer to your. question is both yes and no technology. is. different and the question of whether.

social media is addictive at the heart. of this case will have to be proven it's. not clear right so the methodology the. states are using all coming together to. sue one company is similar the content. is different like big tobacco it's hard. to say anything good about social media. lots of people use to connect to their. friends their family their colleagues to. figure out what celebrities are doing to. look up recipes right there's a lot of. good things that happen with social.

media and so it is not the same in that. way as big tobacco or Jewel but when the. case was first announced last month we. didn't really know what evidence the. states had against meta because their. legal filings were redacted and it was. all blacked out and we couldn't see. anything but since then the. Massachusetts Attorney General has. gotten that State's complaint unsealed. and that gave us a much better sense not. only of the Massachusetts case but of.

similar cases that Attorneys General in. other states were filing right so I want. to better understand this lawsuit that. all these states are involved in so walk. us through the case Atasha the case has. a really interesting backstory it starts. in the fall of 2020 which is when. Netflix released a really ominous docy. drama called the social. dilemma a lot of people think Google's. just a search box and Facebook's just a. place to see what my my friends are. doing what they don't realize is there's.

entire teams of Engineers whose job is. to use your psychology against. you and it featured former Facebook. Google and Twitter Executives warning. about how social media platforms hacked. users psyches we get rewarded by Parts. likes thumbs up and we conflate that. with value and we conflate it with truth. a whole and state Regulators around the. country began to see the documentary. those kids are the first generation in.

history that got on social media in. middle school and they began talking. about how worrisome social media was for. young. people how do they spend their time they. come home from school and they're on. their. [Music]. devices and so some of them are parents. who have seen their own kids use social. media and it's personal for them I spoke. to the Attorney General of Massachusetts. Andrea Joy Campbell and she said look. I'm not just the attorney general I'm.

the mother of two young boys and these. Attorneys General had been watching. spiking rates of teen depression anxiety. and suicide in their states and they. believed that social media was one of. the. causes and while the Attorneys General. were discussing the film and the alarms. it raised for them Facebook is. developing a children's version of the. popular app Instagram for youngsters 13. and under meta right Facebook's parent. company. announced in early 2021 plans to develop.

a new service Instagram for. kids and that caused even more alarm. Bells because Attorneys General were. worried that meta was trying to create. kind of training wheels for Instagram. proper and so more than 40 States got. together and their attorney's General. wrote a letter to Mark Zuckerberg asking. him to Halt the plans to develop. Instagram for kids and soon after they. sent that letter a whistle blower from.

inside meta appeared many of Facebook's. internal research reports indicate that. uh Facebook has a serious negative harm. on a significant portion of teenagers. and children Francis hgan a former. Facebook product manager had taken tens. of thousands of internal documents and. she spoke to the Wall Street Journal and. she testified in. Congress that the company knew that they. were making young women feel worse the. company's leadership knows how to make. Facebook and Instagram safer but won't.

make the necessary changes because they. have put their astronomical profits. before people and it causes a firestorm. and meta announced that it was going to. pause the development of Instagram for. kids and more than 40 States announced. that they were going to investigate. whether meta and particularly Instagram. had deliberately created a platform to. addict kids and knew that it could cause. them harm.

so that's how we get to these lawsuits. it sounds like a slow burning. realization by these states Attorneys. General that there is a problem inside. meta with Instagram and that there's. something they are uniquely capable of. doing about it exactly and over the last. two years the Attorneys General have. amassed thousands of internal documents. from meta showing how Instagram works.

and using that and also testimony from. other. whistleblowers they contend they now. have a really strong case in which they. are accusing meta particularly. Instagram of deliberately designing. addictive features that harm children of. lying about the. harms and also of allowing underage. users under 13 on his.

platform okay well let's walk through. those three claims in these lawsuits one. by one let's start with the claim that. meta Instagram design intentionally. addictive features what what's the. evidence that the lawsuits outline you. know I think in simple. terms the Attorneys General are accusing. meta but particularly Instagram of being. an all powerful social media slot.

machine that has knowingly ens snared. addicted and harmed millions of young. people and so if you think about how a. slot machine works and some of the. attorney generals have used this phrase. right it can be endless and so that is. one of the things they say is an. addictive feature that there's no. natural end for young people that it's. really really hard to get off second of. all they say that Instagram bombards. young people with all kinds of. notifications. and if you've used Instagram you have.

probably seen them Chad just posted a. new photo Chloe has a new real Katie. Kirk's going live right and so first of. all that like is a dopamine hit because. you're gonna see something new right and. you instantly have to go check second of. all there's social pressure right if you. don't like your friends post fast enough. what is that going to mean and then. there's also fear of missing out because. some of those things like Instagram live. or stories are temporal if you don't do.

it now or in the next 24 hours you're. not going to see it and so the Attorneys. General alleged that all this stuff is. by design that these compelling features. have a particularly pernicious effect on. young people because it overrides their. brains right I mean here I have to. confess that I have. lost two to three hours at a stretch on. Instagram. because of the very features you're.

describing and I'm 44 years old but I. think we all are right you're scrolling. down and there's this Nano second where. you're like salivating in anticipation. like Pavlov's dogs and then you see. something new and you get a dopamine hit. and look there's George and Amal Clooney. right look there's Khloe Kardashian's. new thong there's Lionel Messi waving. his pink jersey things you absolutely. don't need to know well what are the. specific claims of harm two children. from all these features we're talking.

about so there are two sets of harms. right one is psychological the lawsuits. are not simply saying that spending all. this time on Instagram is causing kids. to lose sleep or take time away from. school or distract from homework what. they're saying is that the features they. contend or designed to addict kids cause. compulsive use of Instagram and that. compulsive use can lead to increased.

depression among young people increased. anxiety increased isolation and. loneliness and particularly among young. women increased dislike of their own. bodies for example the lawsuit focuses. on these cosmetic surgery and Beauty. filters that you can use if you're on. Instagram because you can use the. filters to make your arms look thinner. or your boobs look bigger or to give you. a stronger chin and. there's a.

conversation inside Instagram that's. cited in one of these lawsuits in which. even Instagram executives are saying you. know we're actively encouraging young. girls to hate their bodies with these. filters right because a filter like that. basically. encourages the people who use it to. think that something is wrong and needs. to be improved right and apart from the. mental health harms the state lawsuits. also allege that there are concrete.

harms that come from young people using. the platforms for example a. whistleblower recently came forward with. internal company documents and said that. a survey of Instagram users found that. 22% of 13 to 15 year olds said they were. bullied on the platform just within the. last week he also said that about 22% of. young you users had said they received.

unwanted sexual advances again just. within the last. week so in the world of these lawsuits. Instagram especially is not a place. where you go to innocently post about. your life and catch up with your. friends Instagram according to this. lawsuit is an addictive product whose. most popular features make it dangerous. for kids right that's what the lawsuits.

are saying and not only that the states. are accusing meta of. knowingly concealing those. [Music]. harms we'll be right. [Music]. back tell us more about this allegation.

in these lawsuits the second of the. allegations that meta knew Instagram was. harmful to kids but tried to hide that. from the public that's one of the really. surprising things about the state. complaints they describe how the company. regularly did research on Teen Mental. Health regularly surveyed its users aged. 13 to 17 and knew that they were having. negative experiences and that they were.

experiencing harms and yet the. complaints say company Executives from. Mark Zuckerberg on down testified in. Congress or gave interviews on TV saying. that they cared about the well-being of. their youngest users they were doing all. this work to protect them and that the. platform was safe H in other words that. they knew better than what they were. saying in public about what Instagram. did or didn't do to kids they had.

internal evidence showing it was bad and. they'd go out and say it's not bad or. even that it's good that's what the. states contend I'm curious what. according to the lawsuits did meta do. with this data it had about what its. users were feeling this data that often. showed these harms the lawsuits describe. how a number of meta employees were. worried by their own internal data on. their impact on teen users and these. meta employees proposed different ways.

to mitigate the problems and the harms. that young people were having and yet. their proposals were often shut down by. their bosses H give us a couple examples. of that one of the internal projects was. about likes and so according to one. complaint meta's research found that. teen users often like compare their. accounts to their friends and when they. see other people getting more validation. it's kind of a negative comparison and. it led to negative outcomes like.

increased loneliness or Worse body image. or negative mood mhm and so to try to. change that meta did a test program. called project Daisy where in some cases. they basically hid all the like counts. you saw on Instagram except for your own. and then another experiment where like. Counts from like really popular accounts. were visible but not like normal people. mhm and they found found that both of. those.

experiments reduced users experience of. negative feelings and negative social. comparisons that's fascinating and so. the solution was let's hide the likes by. default and it might make teens happier. and around 2020 meta Executives did this. whole publicity tour saying that they. were going to put this into effect but. ultimately meta did not take away the. likes and why not that's a really.

important question that the complaints. don't directly answer the implication in. the lawsuits is that it there was a. profit motive for not taking the likes. away but because meta had publicly said. they were going to take the likes away. there was some kind of pressure to do. something and so at the end of the day. meta offered an opin option that you. could choose to hide the likes and the. lawsuit says that meta knew that that. was really not going to make a. difference because they studied it and. they found that if you offered people.

the chance to hide their like counts. less than 1% of people would do it but. if it was opt out by default 35% would. leave the like counts hidden and so. basically the allegation is that here. was something easy that meta could have. done to reduce social anxiety for teens. and they chose not to do it do we get a. sense from these lawsuits of who at the. company is blocking these efforts to. make Instagram better safer for kids yes.

we. do there's one striking example in the. Massachusetts lawsuit against meta which. talked about those cosmetic surgery. filters we talked about before yep and. there's this whole internal discussion. in this lawsuit between different. Executives saying these cosmetic filters. are overwhelmingly used by teen girls we. know it's not good for them outside. experts say that that these filters are.

not good for young women let us disallow. them again a little bit like the likes. do something easy low hanging fruit just. make it go away yeah and there is an. internal discussion among a handful of. top Executives at Instagram and Mark. Zuckerberg according to the lawsuit is. part of this chain and there's supposed. to be a meeting with Mark Zuckerberg to. discuss getting rid of these filters and. one day before the meeting it's canceled. and then according to the lawsuit Mark.

Zuckerberg vetoed the proposal to. formally ban these plastic surgery. camera filters himself wow and in the. email it says he specifically directed. staff to relax and he said there was a. clear demand for these filters and. according to the lawsuit he said in the. email that he had not seen data. suggesting that these filters were. harmful so here you have the CEO of the. company saying I don't see a problem.

here and I reject the idea of getting. rid of these filters you have the CEO. saying according to the lawsuit these. filters are popular but these are. selected quotes from emails we do not. have the full correspondence nor do we. know what data he looked at or didn't. look at Natasha the final allegation you. mentioned earlier in these lawsuits is. that meta knowingly. allowed very young children onto the. platform what does the lawsuit have to. say about that So Meta terms of use say.

that you cannot set up an account on. Instagram if you are under 13 MH and the. reason for that is there's a federal law. that says companies that know they have. kids on their platform must get. permission from parents to let them. create an account that would involve. collecting their personal data got it. but what the lawsuit said is that meta. made it easy for users under 13 to sign. up for a counts and that initially there.

was a dropdown menu that automatically. generated a date and year of birth for. new users that would make them over 13. and so the default was basically to. suggest what birth dat to pick to be 13. which of course if you're under 13 you'd. pick and then they changed it because. somebody internally according to this. lawsuit said it should be neutral but of. course it's very easy to lie and pick. years that make you older than 13 and.

the result was the lawsuit says that. millions of kids under 13 were on. Instagram in violation of the federal. children's Privacy Law And if meta were. found guilty of violating that law the. fines can be more than $50,000 per. violation so just to summarize this. entire case Natasha is that meta. designed Instagram to be addictive knew. that from its own research and pretty. much lied to the public about that fact.

and internally rejected employees. requests to do something about this and. make Instagram better for kids and all. the while it is not doing all that much. to stop kids under 13 who are most. vulnerable to all the things we're. talking about from using the platform. that is what the majority of State. Attorneys General in the United States. content so let's turn to meta's defense.

against this lawsuit what has the. company said about the allegations and I. think more importantly about the. evidence that's contained in these. lawsuits so I reached out to meta to ask. them what the response was to all these. lawsuits they got back to me and they. said first of all the company has made a. major and ongoing investment in. protecting Young Folks on their. platforms and that there were now more. more than 30 tools and resources to.

protect teens and help keep them safe. and away from potentially harmful. content and unwanted contact on their. platforms MH they also said that the. state's. complaint is basically cherry-picked. meta said that the lawsuit was filled. with like selective quotes from. handpicked documents and that they. didn't provide real context of how the. company operates and how it makes. decisions hm on the other issues they.

pointed out that Instagram's terms of. service prohibit users under the age of. 13 and that when the company finds users. under 13 they remove those. accounts and as for the beauty filters. we talked about meta said that it banned. filters that directly promoted cosmetic. surgery or Extreme Weight Loss and I. also asked them about the comparisons to. Big tobacco. that some of the Attorneys General were.

making and meta said that it was an. absurd comparison unlike tobacco they. said meta apps add value to people's. lives so they basically completely. rejected the comparison to Tobacco so at. the end of the day Natasha based on your. reporting how strong is this case that's. being made against meta by the states. and How likely are the states to win you. know Michael it's not a SL dunk because. the states are accusing meta of several.

distinct and really big things and those. could be hard to prove it's going to be. hard to prove for instance that. notifications and likes cause addiction. and that addiction leads to depression. or isolation there are studies linking. social media use to increase symptoms of. depression or feelings of isolation or. negative. self-esteem but unlike cigarettes social. media is relatively new we do not have.

Decades of research and particularly we. don't have rigorous research showing. that the typical use of social media by. typical kids directly causes harm right. but there are larger legal issues at. play here including section. 230 which is part of the communications. decency act and in simple terms that. provision gener allows Digital Services. like Instagram to curate speech and.

content any way they like and not be. held liable so you could see in these. lawsuits from the states that they're. carefully trying to avoid talking about. content they're talking about tools like. algorithms but social media companies. have argued that they're entitled under. the section 230 to curate content as. they see fit interesting and that the. algorithms do that curation and. therefore the companies are not liable. for the content okay I want to just for.

a moment Natasha ask us to put ourselves. in meta's heads space because we've been. spending so much time talking about the. state's case the state's evidence the. state's worries about what meta is doing. if you're meta and you're watching this. case. unfold I wonder if it's likely that. they're asking the question why are all. these State Attorneys General focused on. us we're not the only only social media. platform out there where all this stuff.

is happening there's Tik Tok there's. Snapchat there's many others so are they. feeling a little bit kind of picked on. right why me so what you're saying is. absolutely true right like Tik Tok also. has these features that the states are. concerned about like endless feeds and. likes and Beauty filters and Snapchat. has notifications and stories that. disappear after 24 4 hours in fact meta. essentially copied some of the features.

the states are complaining about from. other social media platforms and so it. would be completely legitimate for them. to say why are you picking on us except. that the states are not only picking on. Instagram in. 2022 the states announced that they were. investigating Tik Tok for many of the. same practices or similar practices that. they were already investigating metaphor. and Tennessee and Colorado are leading.

that investigation into Tik Tok it's. been going on about a year and a half. and remember in The Meta case right they. announced it two years ago and now. they're actually filing the lawsuit. right so this case isn't the only case. it's just the furthest along right and. the implication of that is this is a. moment the AG's hope of possible. Reckoning for these platforms all of. them I think that that is the design of. the. lawsuits um not only to try to litigate.

their way into causing meta to. change some of the things we discussed. already but it's going to attract a lot. of publicity right and it's going to. reinforce some of the concerns that. lawmakers the Surgeon General and many. other people have already been voicing. and so I think that it's kind of the. beginning of a snowball and so I think. that they hoping to use these lawsuits. to cause meta to change and then.

therefore other social media platforms. whether they win the lawsuit or not. Natasha we had started this. conversation using the analogy of the. state cases against tobacco companies. all those years ago and when I think. about those cases one of the clear. outcomes was that everybody started to. think of cigarettes as dangerous I. wonder if the states in the case against. Meta Even if they don't win in court. would would be happy in a world where. lots more parents walk around the world.

thinking of social media platforms like. Instagram as a danger to their kids. would that be a successful outcome for. the states yeah I don't think it would. Michael I think that we already have a. lot of parents walking around thinking. that social media is problematic. including some Attorneys General and. parents are struggling to keep their. kids off their devices and not on social. media for hours and hours at a time so. like news flash social media is. problematic I don't think that's news. right I think what they want is they.

want the companies to stop using or dial. down some of the features we talked. about endless feeds endless bombarding. of young people with notifications they. want that stuff to. [Music]. stop you know I think about Jonathan. Sketti who is the Attorney General of. Tennessee who co-led the investigation. into meta. and what he said to me was you know.

social media companies know what they. did to make their platforms as habit. forming as possible for kids and so the. companies ought to know where the. switches are to turn those habit forming. features. off and so really that's the end game. for these Attorneys General they want. the companies to either turn these. features off or dial them. back well Natasha thank you very much. thank.

you we'll be right. [Music]. back here's what else you need to. another day look at what Kamas is. holding inside the hospital these are. explosives these are vest vest with. explosives we have hand grenades. kalachnikov and then we have the.

RPGs on Tuesday Israel released a pair. of videos that it said were recorded. from inside gaza's main Children's. Hospital that showed weapons and. explosives purportedly stockpiled there. by Hamas this is Hamas firing harpes for. hospitals the world has to understand. who is Israel fighting against Israel. shared the videos to press its case that. Hamas is using hospitals as cover for.

its military operations and to justify. Israel's operations aimed at evacuating. the hospitals which have sparked outrage. gaza's Health Ministry which is run by. Hamas denied nearly every Israeli claim. in the video but the health Ministry. acknowledged that the footage was taken. from inside gaza's main children's. hospital and on Tuesday afternoon the. Biden Administration said that us. intelligence sources had information.

supporting Israel's. claims and a temporary spending bill. that would avert a government shutdown. at the end of the week was adopted by. the Republican controlled house after. more than 200 Democrats crossed party. lines to back it the bill was seen as a. major test of the new house Speaker Mike. Johnson who chose keeping the government. open over pleasing his party's far right.

the bill which would fund some. government departments until mid January. and the rest of the government through. early February did not include the. spending cuts that conservatives had. demanded prompting more than 90 of them. to vote against. [Music]. it today's episode was produced by Alex. Stern will Reed and Carlos PR. with help from Stella tan it was edited.

by John Ketchum with help from Michael. benoa contains original music by Marian. Lozano and Dan pal and was engineered by. Alyssa Moxley our theme music is by Jim. runberg and Ben lansburg of. Wonderland that's it for the Daily I'm. Michael. B see you.

[Music]. tomorrow.