"Meta knew and planned": The phrase that could complicate Zuckerberg's empire
Prof. Nitzan Pekin, Deputy Director of the Center for Cyber Law and Policy at the University of Haifa, explained the lawsuit against Meta, which centers on the question of whether the company used data it collected on minors to design its products and increase screen time.
Dozens of US states have filed a lawsuit against the technology giant Meta, owner of Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms, following suspicions that the company misused information in its possession to intentionally design products that increase the dependence of minors. Prof. Nitzan Pekin, a law professor and Deputy Director of the Center for Cyber Law and Policy at the University of Haifa, presented her perspective on this precedent-setting lawsuit.
"This is a very interesting lawsuit," Pekin told Anat Davidov on 103fm. "There are 29 states that have joined, with four main ones leading it. In recent years, over 40 states have filed various lawsuits, some preferred to go the route independently, so 29 states is not the final number," she clarified.
"What is special about this trial is that it focuses to a large extent not on content or privacy alone, but actually on the design of the product. The intention is to understand whether the specific knowledge collected regarding children and their conduct influenced the product design. The legal question is whether a company is allowed to use such knowledge to maximize product construction," she explained, outlining the central argument of the case.
"Several key points came up in the discussion about how much Meta knew what they were doing."
Addressing the issue of addiction, she said: "Not every child becomes addicted. We are not saying that everything Facebook and Instagram do is addictive. However, because these are digital platforms that track behavior continuously and conduct experiments, the claim is that Meta used these techniques to maximize the time children and adults spend on their services. Given that children have specific psychological and neurological sensitivities, this complicates matters for them."
Furthermore, Prof. Pekin noted that it is unclear to what extent Meta carried out these moves consciously, rather than as part of a standard organizational work pattern: "The states' lawyers are highlighting that if they prove Meta not only knew but collected developmental data to maximize their products' architecture—such as infinite scroll and FOMO-inducing elements—then it becomes a question of legal liability."
