Is Meta the Next Big Tobacco? How State Attorneys General Can Use Consumer Protection Litigation to Enforce Corporate Accountability

BY MIA LIN

Outrage spread throughout Congress after Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen revealed that the social media company—now controlled by a parent company, Meta, Inc. (“Meta”)—possessed internal studies showing the harm its platform, Instagram, poses to young users’ mental health. Despite this outrage, federal lawmakers failed to pass any legislation that would address the problem. On the other hand, a group of 10 bipartisan state attorneys general (“AGs”) quickly opened a joint investigation into the company, which could ultimately lead to the states bringing suit against Meta. It is unclear at this point what claims the state AGs may advance against Meta in court. They could, however, follow the examples of past state lawsuits against corporate defendants, which brought claims under state consumer protection laws.

State consumer protection statutes (“UDAP laws”) generally prohibit unfair and deceptive acts and practices in commerce. This Article examines how AGs can use consumer protection litigation to effectively regulate corporations in emerging contexts, such as social media, the electronic tobacco product market, and climate change—areas where other forms of regulation have failed. Using the 1990s Big Tobacco litigation and former Massachusetts’ AG Maura Healey’s (“AG Healey”) lawsuits as case studies, this Article distills a blueprint that state AGs could follow in a potential consumer protection litigation against Meta. How AG Healey utilized one of the strongest UDAP statutes in the nation—Massachusetts’ UDAP law—can serve as a model for other states.