Opening statements in a massive trial against the company behind Instagram and Facebook kicked off Tuesday in California.
Republican Russell Coleman of Kentucky, one of the four state attorneys general leading the charge against Meta, described the bipartisan lawsuit and broader charges against other social media companies as “the opioid fight of our time.”
3 questions with Russell Coleman
Is there evidence of Meta knowing that Facebook and Instagram harmed children but chose to do nothing?
“Over half the states in this country, 29. Red states, blue states rowing together. 29 states are sitting in a courtroom asserting that Meta knowingly harmed our children, monetized, used technology to monetize and harm our kids. The evidence is hefty.
“You’re going to see some damning assertions from behind the veil inside Meta itself. It all comes down to money at the end of the day. The longer our kids stay on, the longer our eyeballs, their eyeballs, are viewing this technology, the more they’re harmed.”
What does Meta say about existing controls for kids and teens?
“You have a whole generation that has to be glued from the screens where there is no limitation as to the doomscrolling, the length of time. These are algorithms that themselves are targeting our kids’ algorithm. There have not been sufficient protections given the nature of the harm.
“Stay tuned in terms of other defendants, not only Meta. There’s a reason that states, like the Commonwealth of Kentucky, are going after the addiction machine that is TikTok or the platform that is the playground of choice for predators, which is Roblox, or Character.AI, which has a narcissistic AI. This is the opioid fight of our time. Those of us who serve in these roles as attorney generals, we go to where the threats are.”
How broad are the lawsuit’s implications?
“There can be protections, common sense protections, that every parent understands that can be incorporated in legal fees. It’s known as injunctive relief, but it is to build in the kind of things that if it had been incorporated 15 years ago with the threshold at common sense measures that will keep our kids safe, that that will limit the danger in the impact on kids mental health.”
This interview was edited for clarity.
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James Perkins Mastromarino produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Michael Scotto. Perkins Mastromarino also produced it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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