Investors File Lawsuit Against Meta, Alleging Facebook Exploited Users for Profit.
A group of investors filed a class-action lawsuit against Facebook’s parent company Meta Platforms on Friday, alleging that the corporation failed to disclose a number of content issues related to the social media platform.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of investors who bought Facebook shares earlier this year, argued that Facebook moderators incurred a “heinous violation of public trust” by exploiting its users to increase profits.
Investors are seeking compensation for their shares, claiming that Facebook’s misrepresented actions caused the share price to artificially inflate.
“The defendants repeatedly misrepresented to investors and the public that the use of Facebook products does not harm children, that the Company takes aggressive.
And effective measures to stop the spread of harmful content, and that Facebook enforces its standards of behavior. equally to all users, “he added. legal file said.
The lawsuit argues that while Facebook promoted all of these statements as factual, the company did not actually take any action to stop the spread of misinformation.
Additional arguments claim that Facebook told investors it had “the strongest set of content policies out there” but knew this was false.
This information comes from recent testimony in Congress by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, who has repeatedly described the platform as “dangerous.”
Haugen, a former company executive, presented internal documents showing that the company knew that Facebook was used to spread dissent and cause harm to users, but “refused to correct these problems.”
Instead, Facebook “chose to maximize its profits at the expense of the safety of its users and the general public, exposing Facebook to serious legal, financial and reputational damage,” the lawsuit alleges.
Facebook also tried to target “a valuable but untapped audience” of tweens, who the company allegedly knew were especially vulnerable to the damaging effects of social media.
Additionally, Facebook has reportedly exempted millions of “high-profile” users from its code of conduct, according to a Wall Street Journal article that originally described whistleblower documents.
Facebook, along with its shared platform, Instagram, reportedly conducted its own research on the effects of its products on adolescent girls.
This research found that Facebook “does[s] body image issues worsen for one in three teens “and many of these girls” blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression. “This reportedly led to increased rates of suicidal thoughts and eating disorders among these girls.
The lawsuit also claimed that Facebook had “weak and ineffective responses” when it came to stopping illegal activities on the platform. This includes the use of Facebook by members of drug cartels and human traffickers.
Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook has become the world’s largest social media platform, with approximately 3.5 billion users on its sites.
The lawsuit alleged that the combined shares of the company disclosed by the complainant amounted to “[employing of] devices, schemes and devices to defraud “.
This lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal problems Facebook has seen in recent weeks. On November 4, Phhhoto, a now-defunct startup, filed an antitrust lawsuit against the company, accusing the tech giant of copying its work, according to The New York Times.