Ohio Public Employees’ Retirement System Files Lawsuit Against Facebook
Posted on 11/17/2021
Ohio Public Employees Retirement System (OPERS) filed a lawsuit in federal court in California against Facebook (rebranded now as Meta). The U.S. public pension giant contends that Facebook violated U.S. federal securities law between April 29th and October 21st by purposely misleading the public about the negative effects of its social platforms and the algorithms that run them. The lawsuit also argues that Facebook knew that its social media platform facilitated dissention and violent extremism, but refused to fix it. OPERS also claims that Facebook deceived shareholders about how its products can negatively affect children.
“Facebook said it was looking out for our children and weeding out online trolls, but in reality was creating misery and divisiveness for profit,” Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said in a statement. “We are not people to Mark Zuckerberg, we are the product and we are being used against each other out of greed.”
OPERS claims that market losses resulting from publicity over Facebook’s actions caused investors, including OPERS, to lose more than US$ 100 billion. Facebook called the lawsuit without merit and said the company would fight it. Many U.S. pension plans have allocation to tech companies such as Facebook, Alphabet, and Apple due to market cap indices.