Meta blocks law‑firm ads

Meta has started removing Facebook and Instagram ads from law firms trying to sign up plaintiffs for lawsuits that say the company’s apps harmed young users. (reuters.com) Reuters reported the change on April 9 after Meta said it was pulling ads aimed at recruiting new plaintiffs for ongoing cases over alleged social-media addiction. Axios reported the removals began Thursday and affected attorneys seeking people who said they were harmed while under 18. (reuters.com) (axios.com) The cases sit inside a much larger fight over youth safety online. Reuters said more than 2,400 lawsuits by individuals, school districts, municipalities and states have been centralized in federal court in California, alongside separate state cases. (reuters.com) The ad crackdown landed two weeks after a Los Angeles jury found Meta and YouTube negligent in a case over addictive design and awarded $6 million, according to Axios. It also followed a March 24 New Mexico verdict that found Meta liable under state consumer-protection law and imposed $375 million in civil penalties, according to Bloomberg Law and the Associated Press. (axios.com) (news.bloomberglaw.com) (pbs.org) Meta has said the lawsuits oversimplify teen mental health and ignore safety work it says it has built for more than a decade. In a January post, the company said recent suits try to place blame for teen mental-health struggles “squarely on social media companies,” while Meta said the evidence is “complex and multifaceted.” (about.fb.com) Meta’s own safety pages say it has rolled out teen protections including default limits and supervision tools across its apps. Those measures are part of the company’s argument that it has invested heavily in safeguards even as the litigation expands. (meta.com) (about.fb.com) The immediate dispute is not over whether legal ads exist on Meta at all, but whether Meta will carry ads that help build cases against Meta. Social Media Today, citing Axios, said the company relied on a policy clause tied to “adverse legal or regulatory impacts to Meta” to justify the removals. (socialmediatoday.com) (axios.com) That puts Meta in the position of policing speech in the same ad system that supplies most of its revenue. The next test is whether plaintiff firms find other ways to recruit clients as the youth-harm cases move deeper into trial courts and settlement talks. (cnbc.com) (reuters.com)