A bipartisan group of state attorneys general mentioned on Thursday they’d opened an investigation into Meta, the corporate previously often called Facebook, for selling its social media app Instagram whereas understanding of psychological and emotional harms brought on by the service.

At least 9 states are concerned within the investigation, together with California, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee and Vermont.

Maura Healey, the Massachusetts legal professional general and one of many leaders of the investigation, mentioned the states have been inspecting whether or not the corporate’s actions violated state shopper safety legal guidelines and put the general public in danger.

“Facebook, now Meta, has failed to protect young people on its platforms and instead chose to ignore or, in some cases, double down on known manipulations that pose a real threat to physical and mental health — exploiting children in the interest of profit,” Ms. Healey mentioned.

The transfer comes after a trove of paperwork from a former worker detailed analysis within the social media firm that instructed youngsters suffered physique picture points when utilizing Instagram. The paperwork, called The Facebook Papers, have been shared with journalists in October. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the paperwork and the issues at Instagram with the assistance of Frances Haugen, the whistle-blower.

Doug Peterson, the Nebraska legal professional general and one other chief of the investigation, mentioned the states would study “the techniques utilized by Meta to increase the frequency and duration of engagement by young users and the resulting harms caused by such extended engagement.”

“When social media platforms treat our kids as mere commodities to manipulate for longer screen time engagement & data extraction, it becomes imperative for state attorneys general to engage our investigative authority under our consumer protection laws,” Mr. Peterson mentioned in a tweet.

Spanning tens of 1000’s of pages and gigabytes of information, the Facebook Papers present an organization struggling to take care of many points that come as a byproduct of its huge scale and billions of customers, spanning subjects like misinformation, dependancy and manipulation of customers around the globe. Much of the data got here within the type of detailed studies investigating the problems, laid out by the corporate’s analysis division.

Meta has mentioned the analysis efforts are supposed to deal with the problems they pinpoint, with the goal of bettering the corporate’s services.

The paperwork element that roughly a 3rd of teenage women in a survey who already felt unhealthy about their our bodies mentioned Instagram made them really feel worse. “Comparisons on Instagram can change how young women view and describe themselves,” the paperwork mentioned.

Meta has disputed the characterization of the preliminary reporting on Instagram’s points, saying that the story lacked context and neglected very important info.

Representatives for Meta didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark on Thursday.

This is a breaking story. Check again for updates.