Meta has received more than 1.1 million reports of users under the age of 13 on its Instagram platform since early 2019 yet it “disabled only a fraction” of those accounts, according to a newly unsealed legal complaint against the company brought by the attorneys general of 33 states.

Instead, the social media giant “routinely continued to collect” children’s personal information, like their locations and email addresses, without parental permission, in violation of a federal children’s privacy law, according to the court filing. Meta could face hundreds of millions of dollars, or more, in civil penalties should the states prove the allegations.

  • fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I mean no shit? Everyone knows kids will lie about their age to sign up for something. 99% of kids born after the internet got popular have lied about their age. Everyone knows they do it.

    • mateomaui@reddthat.comOP
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      1 year ago

      The point is they knew about it and didn’t remove them from the platform while saying the opposite.

        • ugh
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          1 year ago

          People reported the accounts

            • ugh
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              1 year ago

              That’s up to Meta to figure out, but probably not. Obviously they ignored many legitimate reports if the problem has escalated this far. It’s their responsibility to sift through user reports to find the valid ones, then take action.

    • Patches@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      As someone who lied as a child to get in free (kids under 5 free) and who had a beard in high school so he could buy beer. All before the Internet.

      This isn’t a “new quirky Internet Age”. People have been lying about their age since time immemorial.