On Oct. 22, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha P’19 P’22 filed a lawsuit against Meta in the Providence County Superior Court. The lawsuit alleges that the company has profited from failing to protect app users against scam advertisements while simultaneously telling users that they take sufficient action to prevent this advertising.
The 85-page lawsuit cited 2025 Reuters reporting that found Meta was aware of the magnitude of false advertising revenue they were accruing. The suit also cited 2026 Associated Press polling, which found that four in 10 individuals contacted by scammers reported the attempted fraud happening on Facebook.
“Meta knowingly exposed vulnerable users to fraud and scams, and made enormous profits in doing so,” Neronha said in a press release. “When companies, big or small, take advantage of Rhode Island consumers, this office will do everything within our authority to hold them to account.”
Rhode Island is the first state to sue Meta for this alleged misconduct, though Santa Clara County in California has filed a similar lawsuit.
Thursday’s suit follows a landmark August multistate settlement — which included Rhode Island — in which Meta was found liable for consumer protection violations. This resulted in the company having to establish new safety features to protect children and pay over $17 billion in damages.
The settlements are part of a larger wave of legal losses for the company, which include criticisms ranging from encouraging social media addiction and conducting questionable data privacy practices.
Neronha’s lawsuit aims to get Meta to pay for alleged violations of Rhode Island’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
According to the lawsuit, Meta made $16 billion annually from scam ads or ads for restricted goods. It goes on to allege that Meta not only helped distribute the ads, but had a hand in creating them and targeting them at vulnerable populations.
Meta is a massive player in the world of consumer data collection and advertising. According to the lawsuit, around one-quarter of worldwide digital ad spending goes toward Meta ads, which can be targeted extremely accurately toward users through Meta’s extensive data collection mechanisms.
In its advertising standards policy, Meta claims that the company prohibits all forms of advertisements “promoting products, services, schemes or offers using deceptive or misleading practices, including those meant to scam people out of money or personal information.”
Jessica David — president of Local Return, a non-profit focused on economic empowerment — said that it’s exciting to see Rhode Island spearheading these efforts.
“I hope that it does result in a really strong message to companies like Meta that they cannot take advantage of their users,” David said. “I hope it leads to more lawsuits and more actions that protect consumers and everyday people.”
John Marion — executive director at Common Cause Rhode Island, a pro-democracy advocacy organization — said he was surprised that Rhode Island was the first state to file a lawsuit of this kind.
“If it leads to greater regulation of the platform or platforms that Meta controls, that could probably only be good for the democracy work because right now they’re largely unregulated,” Marion said.
Meta did not respond to a request for comment.
David noted that a small number of technology companies have an unprecedented amount of power and control over the public and the economy.
“I think the accusations at the heart of this lawsuit are … just one more example in my mind of how Meta and companies like Meta prey on people,” David said. The fact that “there is evidence they are generating false and misleading and dangerous content” is “really outrageous in my mind,” she added.
Ava Stryker-Robbins is a sophomore and a Metro editor at The Herald.
