In less than a week, the attorneys general of three states each filed their own cases against social media giants for allegedly hurting children through sextortion, addiction, and privacy violations.
Federal, state, and local governments have asked Big Tech to answer for problems with the mental health of young people.
“You see a huge variety of approaches to trying to solve this problem,” Josh Golin, executive director of Fairplay, a nonprofit that wants to stop marketing to kids, told Axios. He was talking about actions taken by both the government and individuals against social media companies.
Recently, state attorneys general attacked TikTok, Snap, and YouTube, saying they were responsible for safety and health risks to children. This whole week:
Ken Paxton, the Republican attorney general of Texas, sued TikTok for reportedly breaking the state’s parental consent law, which says that social media sites can’t share personal information about minors without their parents’ permission.
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New Mexico’s Democratic Attorney General Raúl Torrez (D) shared information about a recent lawsuit against Snap. The lawsuit says that the company ignored reports of sextortion, didn’t use verifiable age verification, and admitted to having features that connect kids with adults.
The lawsuit used Snap internal messages about reports of grooming by users and research the company did that showed teens were vulnerable on the app as evidence. By November 2022, the complaint said, “Snap employees were talking about 10,000 reports of sextortion each month from users.”
Google, YouTube, and their parent company Alphabet were sued by Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin (R). He said they broke the state’s misleading trade practices act and that YouTube “profited off young Arkansans” with an addicting platform.
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Golin, who is also a co-founder of Parents for Safe Online Spaces, said that the move by the attorneys general shows that children have already been hurt.
To make things better, steps like the proposed Kids Online Safety Act and Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act 2.0 should be taken to stop problems before they happen. This would “force platforms to make changes to how they’re designed before the harms are occurring,” he said.
To protect kids’ safety online, the Federal Trade Commission, school districts, and state lawmakers in states like Florida, Maryland, and California have also sued or passed laws.
Children’s internet safety is one area where both Democrats and Republicans agree in Congress. However, the KOSA and COPPA 2.0 package has stalled in the House after passing easily in the Senate.
Last month, the bill was moved forward by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
A Google representative, José Castañeda, denied the claims made in the Arkansas lawsuit.
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“We built services and policies to provide young people with age-appropriate experiences, and parents with robust controls,” he stated.
A Snap representative told Axios that the app was made for private, close-knit contact, and that the way it’s set up makes it hard for strangers to find minors.
Someone from the company said, “We care deeply about our work here, and it hurts us when bad people abuse our service.”
This is Ashley Gold, a senior tech and policy writer for Axios, with her thought bubble: State attorneys general often go after what they see as Big Tech hurting kids online without going after the federal government. One way they do this is by suing tech companies for breaking state laws.
Individual cases aren’t too hard for businesses to defend against yet, but they will be as more states join and plaintiffs start winning.
Last year, dozens of state attorneys general sued Meta, saying that the company knew it was giving kids and teens risky goods and features that could hurt their mental health. The case hasn’t been tried yet.
This year, attorneys general said they back a federal move to add a surgeon general warning to social media sites about the health risks they pose to young people.
Alix Fraser, who runs Issue One’s Council for Responsible Social Media, told Axios that all social media companies “play by the same lack of rules.” Responses that aren’t consistent across states mean that kids in some places get more help than others.
“We’re seeing the real beginnings of the turning of the tide,” said he.
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