Australian law firm MinterEllison launches class action lawsuit against Meta over ‘harmful’ social media content
A new class action on behalf of Australian children will seek to take on social media giant Meta over allegedly ‘addictive’ and ‘harmful’ content on its platforms.
Australian law firm MinterEllison has filed a class action against social media giant Meta on behalf of children and teenagers who have allegedly “suffered harm as a result of addictive design features and exposure to harmful content”.
Filed in the Federal Court of Australia on Wednesday, the class action will be seeking compensation for children and teens exposed to harmful and addictive content on platforms like Instagram and Facebook.
MinterEllison partner David Taylor said the claims include “allegations about Meta’s awareness of potential harm to children and its use of features designed to encourage engagement”.
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“Those questions will now be considered through the Federal Court process”.
The class action will be financially backed by Litigation Lending Services, who say they are “proud” to support the lawsuit.
Litigation Lending Services Chairman Shaun Bonett said protecting children from harm was “of the highest public importance”.
“The questions raised in this proceeding about the design and operation of some of the world’s most widely used social media platforms deserve to be properly tested before the Court,” he said.
“This class action is an important step towards ensuring that one of the world’s most powerful technology companies is held to account for conduct alleged to have caused widespread harm to children.”
Between September and December 2021, a large dossier of confidential files owned by Meta, then still known as Facebook, were leaked to the public in a series of stories by the Wall Street Journal.
Many of the files and stories suggested senior figures within the company knew about the potential harms caused by their platforms.
Within the leaked documents was a slide from an internal 2019 presentation which allegedly said “we make body-image issues worse for one in three teen girls”.
