Free Speech for Meta, But Not for Thee

Meta went 0-2 in court this week and the losses may keep piling up.

A day after a trial in New Mexico “found the company misled consumers about the safety of its platforms and enabled harm, including child sexual exploitation, against its users”, Meta was slammed with another guilty verdict. This time in California.

A 20-year-old woman (KGM) sued Meta and YouTube for $6 million for her depression, body dysmorphia and suicidal thoughts that was caused by compulsive social media use as a small child. KGM started using YouTube at six and Instagram at nine. Although this 20-year-old woman is anonymous and went through Hell, her victory could be the match that completely burns down social media’s predatory practices. Hopefully, she recovers and never experiences debilitating depression or anxiety again. Her pain is real, but it’s not a bad way to start winding down Women’s History Month. Kudos to K.G.M., a strong and brave American Patriot.

Her case is the first state-level "test trial" in the country that focused on engineering addiction through infinite scroll, auto-play, and other features. There are more than 1,600 social media addiction cases filed in California connected to this verdict. More should follow across the country as these cases in New Mexico and California are major legal wins for those trying to hold social media giants accountable for predatory business models.

Meta is in big, big trouble. Finally. Hopefully. Maybe. It’s hard for me to believe Meta will face any real consequences. The company executives and lawyers have found a way to avoid accountability since its inception.

Social Media is Destroying Girls’ Mental Health

Ahh women. Before they grow up, they are children. Weird, right? What’s Meta’s internal research say about girls?

• 37% of teen girls reported that Instagram made them feel worse about their bodies (only 26% of general users reported the same).
• 48% of teen girls report comparing their appearance to others "often or always" on Meta product, Instagram (compared to 33% of all users).
• Internal data showed 13% of 13–15-year-olds experience unwanted sexual advances on the platform every week.
• 13.5% of teen girls say Instagram makes thoughts of suicide and self-harm more intense.
• Approximately 70% of teen girls are exposed to what Meta defines as "too much" sensitive or appearance-based content via algorithms.

Meta’s internal research is alarming. And all this data was leaked in 2021. I can't imagine the numbers improved much. Clearly, social media has negative consequences for teen girls. SokoLove Law put together a pretty damning list of a ton of research against social media. I have no affiliation with the firm, but they compiled data from a various list of sources.

Here’s some more highlights from the research:

• 17% of teen girls reported that Instagram usage worsened their struggles with eating disorders and body dysmorphia.
• 1 in 3 teen girls stated that the pressure to look perfect on Instagram led to significant declines in their mental well-being.
• Females are significantly more likely than males to develop a clinical addiction to Facebook, often linked to the platform's social validation loops.

Social media is bad for adults when overused, but for children, especially girls, it’s a ticking time bomb. What if despite the data, social media giants are able to use the U.S. Constitution to protect themselves from accountability for their actions.  

Free Speech for Meta, Not For Thee

The most common defense for Meta when on trial? The First Amendment. Meta has said that their product design is a company secret. But that’s not all. Meta claims the company is an editor, with their code and algorithms being the business expressing itself. I shit you not. A company is allowed to express itself. Meta has a right to free speech, so the business’s expression of free speech cannot be regulated. Duh. Meta even goes as far as saying that notifications and alerts are speech because they inform the user about content that’s interesting to them. Why is Meta, a social media company, granted free speech protection? It’s a fucking business, not a person.

In Jian Zhang v. Baidu.com, Inc. (2014) a federal court ruled that search engines have a First Amendment right to curate their results how the business sees fit, even if that involves censorship. Meta argued in court that engagement algorithms are editorial secrets and expressive choices that the state/law cannot question without violating Meta’s own free speech rights. That’s right, America. What shows on your News Feed is protected by the First Amendment, which makes one thing painfully obvious to me. A non-living entity, Facebook, which was initially designed to compare two women against each other and have users determine who is hotter, has more protections and rights than American teen girls. You don’t say.

During Brock v. Zuckerberg, the court found (Meta) is not a state actor or public forum which protected Meta's right to deactivate accounts and delete user posts without being bound by constitutional speech constraints. Meta is allowed to ban users or take down posts, which I argue is an American individual’s editorial content, but when asked about their business practices that exploit children and cause mental health issues for people of all ages, Meta uses the First Amendment to protect themselves from accountability.

The social media company’s algorithms, search engine feeds, and advertisements? Editorial choices protected by the First Amendment. Human accounts, posts and comments? Subject to removal by Meta. And they don’t even have to provide a reason why. Free speech for Meta, not for its users. Never knew Mark Zuckerberg was a Commie.

Why is a business able to protect its harmful practices and design under the First Amendment? These are NOT First Amendment issues. These are predatory behaviors that American law and/or its judges are unable or unwilling to stop. The Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA) could be the reason why.

Communications Decency Act is a Problem

In the 1990s, America had a porn problem. At least in the eyes of Congress who created the CDA to regulate naked people doing naked things on the internet. The Supreme Court tore most of the Act to shreds for violating the First Amendment. Section 230 of the Act though? That stayed. It stated, "no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."

Essentially, social media, blogs, forums, etc. cannot be held legally liable for what their users post. It also allowed such companies to remove "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable" material without any consequences. This is what I call suppression of free speech via business/corporate law.

The thirty-year-old law is hated by Democrats who believe it enables platforms to ignore misinformation, hate speech, and harassment. Republicans hate it, too except they believe it allows platforms to censor or shadow ban political viewpoints under the guise of moderation. Funny how both sides of the aisle hate a law, but for different reasons. Only in America.

Due to the CDA, if a Facebook user posts a fake content, Meta can say, “Sue the user not us. We didn’t create the post.” But what if the state or federal government demands accountability for Meta’s business practices and algorithm designs?

NetChoice Empowers an Unregulated Internet

California attempted to pass the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act (CAADCA) in 2022, which required businesses to conduct Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs) and set privacy defaults to "high" for children. Earlier this month, NetChoice, a trade association funded by Meta and other Big Tech giants, successfully argued that the CAADCA was an unconstitutional content-based restriction and successfully won. They lost the fight to keep children’s privacy settings on low by default, though. That’s right. Setting privacy defaults high for children was argued against by NetChoice, which “works to make the Internet safe for free enterprise and free expression,” according to its website. I guess a safe Internet doesn’t include children.

In 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that editorial discretion applies to social media in the landmark case, Moody v. NetChoice. The Court stated that when a platform curates a feed, it creates an expressive product of its own. American courts ruled that a social media platform’s click-bait and harmful feed is the business entity’s creative expression. Businesses are people and allowed to express themselves in America. This ruling protected Meta's business by ensuring that the state cannot force the company to carry content that might degrade the user experience or alienate advertisers preserving the "brand safety" for Meta’s businesses to operate without a hitch.

The Court essentially told Meta, that its "News Feed" was not a public utility but a private, expressive space giving Meta the right to choose what to demote, label, or remove via protections of the U.S. Constitution.

Why Are Children Allowed on Social Media?

Meta tried to dismiss the latest lawsuits in California and New Mexico with their First Amendment defense. For the first time in our history, American Courts ruled that the addictive product design is not protected by free speech.  You’d think that’s obvious, right? Not until these landmark cases. Meta used Section 230 to hide itself from what users’ post; while using the First Amendment to protect their computer-based non-living entity, I mean algorithm from expressing itself.

Let’s call this what it is. Regarding KGM's case in California, jurors found Meta and YouTube acted with "malice, oppression or fraud." That's legal terms meaning Meta and YouTube didn't make a mistake, they intentionally harmed KGM and other children for profit. These scum-sucking maggots, I mean Meta executives, are willing to cause damage to public health, destroy lives, and cause death for America’s youth as long as it makes shareholders and executives a few extra bucks. Is that what America truly is? It sure as hell looks like it.