Attorney General William Tong (D) explains the lawsuit he and 32 other state attorneys general initiated against Meta. This complaint is regarding the damaging of younger people’s mental health through their apps.
Mike Hydeck: Taking on a tech giant is not easy for Congress so now 33 state attorneys general are giving it a try. Connecticut's Attorney General William Tong joins us to talk about Connecticut's part in this. Attorney General, welcome back to Face the Facts. We appreciate your time.
William Tong: Thank you, Mike.
Mike Hydeck: Alright, so first up, you say, and the lawsuit says Meta intentionally violated state consumer laws. How so?
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William Tong: Yeah. So it's not just 33 states. It's 42 states. And what we know after a couple of years of investigation, and really digging into this is that Meta has targeted young people. It's targeted children, in many cases under 13, children, teens and young people to get them addicted, hooked on social media, and then to monetize their addiction by basically selling their addiction to people that want to influence them, that want to sell products, that want to make money off of young people. And this is a gross violation of our state's consumer protection laws. They've lied to us by telling us that social media is safe, and that they're doing everything they can to protect kids. They're not and that's why we're going after them.
Mike Hydeck: So in 2021, as you heard the sound bites just there before, they went through this in front of Congress. And now the federal laws protecting our children are allegedly getting disregarded, according to this lawsuit. So were the safeguards not tight enough the first time around?
William Tong: So I think that's why state attorneys general are so active. That's why I was so active in the opioid and addiction crisis, recovering over $50 billion from the opioid and addiction industry. It's why I've sued Amazon and Google because we can't wait for Washington. Washington, as you've seen the last couple of weeks, is broken. And state attorneys general need to act. States need to act to protect our kids. We know about Facebook's predatory conduct. We know that the number is much higher than five or six percent. I have a 17-year-old and a 15-year-old and a 12-year-old. Anybody watching with kids, teens, young people in their household, in their family, they know it is so hard to keep them off these devices. And frankly, frankly, at the beginning of the press conference announcing our lawsuit, I challenged all the adults, including the reporters and camera people, to stay off their phones for the duration of the press conference. And I challenged everyone to see if they could do it.
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Mike Hydeck: And you know, that's addictive for all of us in one way, shape, or form. However, proving it is a difficult thing. Algorithms are complex, they're opaque. Is it going to be difficult to try to prove cause and effect in a court of law? It seems as if that is not an easy challenge.
William Tong: Well, look, this is a big case. And I am not going to sugarcoat it. Meta, Facebook, Instagram are represented by the biggest and baddest on Earth, right? They've got the best lawyers, the most expensive legal team. And by the way, we're not going to stop with Meta. Tik Tok is well within our sights, as well. But here's what we know. We know that the constant incessant stream of alerts and buzzing and pings, they call them haptics, and the infinite scrolling, all of these are devices to get you hooked. The developer, by the way of the infinite scrolling mechanism, called it behavioral cocaine that you sprinkle all over the user interface. These are strategies designed to go after young people and adults too, by the way, to get them hooked on the platform. And to make money off of that addiction.
Mike Hydeck: Would you like to see these features eliminated? Do you have to come up with a list and say, Look, infinite scrolling has gotta go. Certain click through options have to go. I mean, how do you define all that?
William Tong: They have to make these changes. I'm not a technology expert. So it's on Meta, Facebook, Instagram, number one to make sure that there aren't kids under 13 on the platform. They basically fail to do that at all. There's tons of kids under 13 on the platform. That's a direct violation of federal law. But then on top of that, they need to make changes to their system, their platform, and all the little tricks they use to get people addicted. And then of course, they've got to change the algorithm so it doesn't send content that makes young people, particularly young people, not just feel bad about themselves and their bodies, but that can lead to depression, self harm, and in some cases, people have taken their own lives.
Mike Hydeck: As far as looking at your age, it's self reporting, Oh, yes, I'm 18. Well, all you're doing is checking a box. There's no real proof whether you're 18. So there's got to be something there. Also, if the algorithms are changed, and some of these particular features are dropped, does there have to be an agency to make sure this is happening, to create these desired protections? Because like we said, 2021 they were in front of Congress and nothing happened between now and then. How can we ensure that the proper changes are made and we're making an impact?
William Tong: Yeah, we need, we do need more oversight and regulation. We need Congress to act. To be very honest, lawsuits are not a good way to set policy. But at this moment, that's all we have, are states and state attorneys general, going after Meta because Washington's not doing it. But social media is, as you know, just part of the overall question about regulation of technology, including technology that can do us harm, including artificial intelligence, which, on the one hand, people are really excited about and the other hand, we're really worried about what that means for our world.
Mike Hydeck: Attorney General William Tong, thanks so much for joining us. We appreciate your time on Face the Facts this morning.
William Tong: Thanks, Mike. Appreciate it.
