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Though she dismissed the bulk of Florida’s claims, the federal judge found the tech giant isn’t totally off the hook.
OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) — A federal judge dismissed multiple claims against Meta brought by the state of Florida claiming the company violated the state’s Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (“COPPA”), which imposes certain requirements on operators of websites or online services directed to children under 13 years of age.
Although U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers dismissed two of Florida’s claims on the grounds of improper venue and failure to claim sufficient facts, she allowed one claim based on the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act to survive.
The decision in the Northern District of California is part of the multidistrict proceeding involving hundreds of personal injury lawsuits on behalf of children and adolescents, by school districts and local governments, and by state attorneys general. The plaintiffs claim that Facebook and Instagram, as well as Google’s YouTube, ByteDance’s TikTok and Snapchat are to designed to foster compulsive use by minors.
In their joint lawsuit filed last year, the 33 states claim that Meta built a business model focused on maximizing young users’ time on its platforms and employed psychologically manipulative platform features. They accused the social media giant of publishing reports purporting to show misleadingly low rates of user harms and said it refused to address existing harms to users to conceal and downplay its platforms’ adverse effects.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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