Mark Zuckerberg, Wins Elimination Of Part Of The Demands In Children's Case

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms (right) (photo: Instagram @zuck)

JAKARTA - On Monday, April 15, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms Inc., won the abolition of part of the charges in a series of lawsuits accusing him of hiding the fact that Facebook and Instagram have the potential to harm children.

The decision was issued by US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in▁olahraga, California, in the context of litigation carried out by a number of child representatives blaming Meta and other social media companies for their dependence on the platform.

In the lawsuit, twenty-five cases tried to personally blame Zuckerberg, stating that the Meta founder created a false impression of the platform's security despite repeated warnings that the platforms were not suitable for children.

The plaintiffs argue that as a public figure and leader of Meta, Zuckerberg has an obligation to speak honestly about the risks facing Meta products, especially for children.

However, Judge Rogers rejected this charge, stating that the plaintiffs could not rely on Zuckerberg's personal knowledge to prove that he was directly responsible for each individual case. According to him, it will open the door to similar demands against other public figures, which is an unacceptable approach.

"The courts will not allow such a new approach here," Rogers said.

Although some of the demands have been removed, Meta remains a defendant in this litigation, and the company insists that it has made no mistake. These cases continue to await a decision from the court, while hundreds of similar lawsuits are still in the process of being faced with Meta and other social media companies, including Alphabet, which operates Google and YouTube; ByteDance, which operates TikTok; and Snap, which operates Snapchat.