Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has reportedly been lobbying Congress to include provisions granting legal immunity from child-harm claims in proposed legislation, as the company confronts thousands of social media addiction lawsuits from young users and their families.
Reuters reports that Meta has been actively lobbying Congress to include provisions granting legal immunity from child-harm claims in proposed legislation, as the company confronts thousands of lawsuits from young users and their families. According to a source familiar with the matter and proposed legislative language reviewed by Reuters, the social media giant is seeking protection from liability related to products such as Instagram.
The proposed immunity provision would be incorporated into the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) which is currently under consideration in the United States Senate. If lawmakers adopt the language and it becomes law, such a provision could potentially undermine thousands of existing lawsuits against Meta and other online platforms over alleged harms to children.
Breitbart News reported in March that both Meta and Google were found liable in the landmark first child social media addiction trial:
The multimillion-dollar award is expected to increase significantly, as jurors determined that the companies acted with malice or highly egregious conduct. This finding means the jury will soon hear additional evidence and return to deliberations to decide on punitive damages, which could substantially raise the total compensation.
Meta and Google-owned YouTube were the final two defendants remaining in the case after TikTok and Snap reached settlements before the trial commenced. The plaintiff, identified in court documents as KGM and referred to as Kaley by her legal team during proceedings, provided testimony alongside high-profile technology executives. Meta leaders Mark Zuckerberg and Adam Mosseri appeared as witnesses, while YouTube CEO Neal Mohan was not called to testify.
The proposed language reviewed by Reuters would make online companies immune from suit or liability under state law with respect to all claims for loss caused by, arising out of, relating to, or resulting from the safety or privacy of individuals under the age of eighteen online or otherwise related to the provisions of KOSA. The provision appears alongside language that would preempt state laws on children’s online safety and privacy.
When asked about the lobbying effort and the proposed language, Meta spokesperson Stephanie Otway said the provision “does not extinguish existing lawsuits, nor does it represent blanket immunity.” She added that it “instead, it establishes uniform national standards for online youth safety, ensuring these critical issues are governed by comprehensive federal legislation, not plaintiffs’ lawyers or patchwork state legislation.”
However, Julia Duncan of the American Association for Justice, a group that represents trial lawyers, disputed this characterization. Duncan stated that if passed, the provision would knock out any lawsuits pending when the law took effect. “The language is pretty clear-cut immunity against every parent, every school district, that is seeking to hold any AI or social media company accountable for harm” to children, Duncan said. “There is no other way to read this language.”
Read more at Reuters here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of AI, free speech, and online censorship.