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.
Wow. Shocking that a company that’s free to use and thus traffics in user data, selling it to advertisers and who knows who else would want to get data of the most vulnerable, least savvy people they can find.
Oh, let’s not forget that whatever price they’re charging for legitimate advertisers is the same any well-funded paedophiles can pay. Facebook ads aren’t terribly expensive.
Yeah, this is my shocked face.