Parent platform Facebook deliberately designed its social platforms to appeal to children but it was never revealed that it had received millions of complaints about underage users on Instagram. On the other hand, it had deactivated only a portion of these accounts, according to a recently concluded legal complaint.

The complaint, initially made public in redacted form, was the opening of a lawsuit filed in late October by the attorneys general of 33 states.Company documents cited in the complaint described several Meta officials admitting that the company designed its products to exploit weaknesses in youth psychology such as impulsive behavior, susceptibility to peer pressure and underestimation of risks, according to reports.

Others acknowledged that Facebook and Instagram were also popular with children under the age of 13, who, according to company policy, were not allowed to use the service.

Meta said in a statement to The Associated Press that the complaint misrepresents its work over the past decade to make the online experience safe for teenagers, noting that it has “over 30 tools to support them and their parents.” .

Regarding banning young users from the service, Meta argued that age verification is a “complex industry challenge”.

Instead, Meta said it favors shifting the burden of underage use to app stores and parents, specifically supporting federal legislation that would require app stores to obtain parental consent whenever youth under 16 download apps.

A Facebook security executive alluded to the possibility that cracking down on new users could hurt the company’s business in a 2019 email, according to the Journal report.

But a year later, the same executive expressed disappointment that while Facebook readily studied the use of underage users for business reasons, it did not show the same enthusiasm for ways to identify younger children and remove them from its platforms. his, the Journal reported.

The complaint noted that at times Meta has a backlog of up to 2.5 million accounts of young children awaiting action, according to newspaper reports.