Meta Intentionally Markets Its Platforms Harmful Features to Young and Vulnerable Users

11. Meta makes its Platforms and associated harmful features available to especially young and vulnerable users.

430. Meta is aware that teens, preteens (also known as tweens), and even younger children use its Platforms, including Instagram, and has intentionally developed and marketed those Platforms towards these young users.

431. Meta knows that it continues to harm young users because Meta’s design features have clear and well-documented harms to young users.

432. Meta’s decision to expose young users to this combination of features and implementation of those features—knowing that they are effective because they are psychologically manipulative and knowing that they are harmful for young users—constitute unfair acts or practices that are impermissible under the law.

433. Meta exposes users under age 13 to these psychologically manipulative design features.

434. A study cited by Meta in response to a congressional inquiry shows that 81% of parents report that their children began using social media between the ages of 8 and 13.

435. Meta knows that a significant portion of preteens (at least 11% of 9 to 11-year olds) use Instagram.

436-437. [Redacted]

438. Meta deceives the public regarding its policies when underage accounts are reported. If someone reports that an account belongs to an individual under the age of 13, Instagram’s Help Center claims that “[w]e will delete the account if we can’t verify the account is managed by someone over 13 years old.” [Redacted] Zuckerberg told Congress on March 25, 2021, “if we detect that someone might be under the age of 13, even if they lied, we kick them off.”

439. [Redacted] However, even though Meta targets children under the age of 13, Meta employees go to great lengths to maintain plausible deniability that Meta is aware of children under the age of 13 on Instagram.

440. [Redacted]

441. Meta’s interest in preteens is unsurprising as Meta has historically regarded children between the ages of 10 and 12 as a “valuable but untapped audience.”

442. Meta formed an internal team to study preteens and commissioned strategy papers to analyze the long-term business opportunities presented by preteens.

443. [Redacted]

444. Meta believes children to be such a strategically lucrative class of users that it also planned to create a new Instagram Platform for children under 13 called “Instagram Kids.”

445. News of Instagram Kids was leaked, however, before Meta released the Platform.

446. After receiving intense scrutiny and backlash from State Attorneys General and Congress about Instagram’s effect on young people’s mental health, Meta “pause[d]” development of the Instagram Kids service.

447. Nonetheless, Meta has made statements internally and publicly continuing to make the case for Instagram Kids and suggesting an intent to resume development and deployment of Instagram Kids in the future.

448. Meta’s external narrative around its proposed Platforms for users under age 13 was misleading because Meta claimed it would prioritize “safety and privacy” of kids under age 13 in versions of Instagram, including in a statement issued to the press and reported by CNBC on May 10, 2021, [Redacted]

449-456. [Redacted]

457. In the meantime, young users, including users under the age of 13, continue to use the ordinary version of Instagram even though users under 13 years-old are nominally prohibited from doing so.