Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta purposefully engineered its platforms to addict children and knowingly allowed underage users to hold accounts, according to a newly unsealed legal complaint. The complaint alleges Meta received millions of complaints about underage users on Instagram but only disabled a fraction of those accounts. Internal Meta documents cited in the complaint show company officials acknowledged designing products to exploit vulnerabilities in youth psychology and get them addicted. The complaint alleges Meta's actions violated the Children's Online Privacy and Protection Act, which requires notice and parental consent before collecting data from children.
