Stealing kids' data 'routine and an open secret' at Instagram

Plus, surprise buyer for UK's Telegraph, Microsoft's AI masterstroke, Twitter/X helps publishers for a change, a Forbes buyout fails, and more

Welcome to Scotch and Watch Monday.

As Judge Amit Mehta considers his ruling on Google’s search monopoly, legal focus is now switching to the other Meta, and in particular, the behaviour of Insta boss Adam Mosseri.

Court documents have been unsealed that claim that Insta received more than 1.1 million reports of users under the age of 13 and “disabled only a fraction”.

No less than 33 US States allege the platform “routinely continued to collect” children’s personal information, locations, and email, without parental permission, violating a federal children’s privacy law, The New York Times reports.

It faces hundreds of millions of dollars in fines if proven.

“Within the company, Meta’s actual knowledge that millions of Instagram users are under the age of 13 is an open secret that is routinely documented, rigorously analyzed and confirmed,” the complaint says, “and zealously protected from disclosure to the public”.

The charges are part of a larger lawsuit (I have already reported on) acc…