Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allegethedigitalchaps

Meta Platforms sought to design its social-media products in ways to take advantage of known weaknesses of young users’ brains, according to newly unredacted legal filings citing internal company documents.

An internal 2020 Meta presentation shows that the company sought to engineer its products to capitalize on the parts of youth psychology that render teens “predisposed to impulse, peer pressure, and potentially harmful risky behavior,” the filings show.

References to the documents were initially redacted in the suit, which was filed in late October by members of a coalition of 41 states and the District of Columbia, alleging that Meta has intentionally built Facebook and Instagram with addictive features that harm young users. Meta approved the filing of an unredacted version on Wednesday.