A landmark federal trial opened Tuesday in Oakland, with prosecutors accusing Meta of deliberately designing Facebook and Instagram to addict young users while concealing what it knew about the harm.
California Deputy Attorney General Megan O’Neill told the court that Meta’s business model could be summed up in four parts: “hook the users, hold them for as long as they can, harvest their data, and then hide the truth from the public,” Jamaica Observer arguing the approach worked especially well on children by exploiting how their brains function. Jamaica Observer She said the company designed its platforms so children would keep coming back. Axios
The case is being argued by California, Colorado, New Jersey and Kentucky on behalf of 29 states that jointly sued Meta in 2023, Axios alleging the company violated the law by building features it knew were addictive and harmful to children’s mental health, and by harvesting personal data from users under 13 without parental consent. Axios Potential penalties in the case have been estimated as high as $1.4 trillion, roughly equivalent to Meta’s entire market value on the Nasdaq, KLCC with legal observers drawing comparisons to the 1990s tobacco litigation that reshaped the cigarette industry. KLCC
Meta’s defense pushed back firmly on the allegations. Attorney Paul Schmidt acknowledged there was “no dispute” that some people struggle with social media use, but argued this did not amount to addiction, citing research showing no clear link between adolescent social media use and diminished wellbeing. U.S. News & World Report He accused the attorneys general of cherry-picking internal documents and comments to build their case, kezi.com and pointed to safety measures including notification controls, parental controls and teen content policies. kezi.com Schmidt also rejected claims that Meta harvests data from under-13 users, noting the company deleted 1.4 million underage accounts over four years once detected. Yahoo Finance
The trial, presided over by District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, is being treated as a test case for a broader suit involving 24 additional states. Yahoo Finance In a statement, Meta said the states “offer no proof anyone in their states was misled” and accused them of chasing “an outlandish payout.” kezi.com
The case adds to mounting legal pressure on Meta over child safety. In New Mexico, a state jury delivered the company’s first courtroom defeat on similar claims, finding Meta liable for misleading consumers and ordering it to pay $375 million in civil penalties after a six-week trial examining an undercover probe in which state investigators posed as underage users on Facebook and Instagram. TechCrunch
