Four U.S. states (California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey) are suing Meta in court, accusing the company of designing Instagram and Facebook to hook young users. The challenged features include infinite scroll, video autoplay, notifications and recommendation systems, mechanisms that critics call addictive but that also drive the platform’s success. Meta has referenced theoretical penalties of up to $1.4 trillion if the company loses. Larry Magid, an online safety advocate and Meta adviser, compares Instagram to a box of chocolates that refills automatically, arguing that algorithms have transformed a potentially useful product into a mechanism encouraging excessive consumption. According to Meta, less than 1% of its revenue comes from teens on Instagram, and the company claims it has implemented strong protections for young users.
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