Meta Platforms intentionally sought to addict children to its Facebook and Instagram platforms, a lawyer for California said yesterday at the start of a trial that could reshape some of the most popular apps on the planet.
A bipartisan group of 29 US states is suing Meta, seeking potentially tens or hundreds of billions of dollars in penalties and changes to how Meta does business.
Four lead states – California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey – accuse Meta of designing Facebook and Instagram to hook young users, fueling anxiety, depression and even suicide, and misleading consumers about the platforms’ safety.
Jurors will hear claims by all 29 states that Meta violated federal law by improperly collecting and using personal data of children while they used its platforms. Megan O’Neill, a deputy attorney general for California, told the eight-person jury in Oakland, California, that Meta’s business model was to – hook the users, hold them for as long as they can, harvest their data, and then hide the truth from the public.” “It worked especially well for kids,” she added. “Meta needed kids, and it needed to reassure the people who cared about those kids that the kids are safe.” Jurors are expected to issue an advisory verdict, but US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will determine Meta’s liability. If she finds Meta liable, Rogers could impose civil penalties and order changes to Facebook and Instagram.
Lawyers for Meta are expected to tell the jury that the company has made a huge effort to keep kids safe online. Meta has said it did not make misleading statements about safety, and the states failed to show their residents were harmed.
Meta co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram chief Adam Mosseri are expected to testify. The trial is scheduled to last six weeks.
Experts have said the trial is the biggest legal test yet of social media’s effects on young users, and comes amid a broader reckoning across the globe over those effects.
Meta has said penalties could be as high as $1.4 trillion, close to the Menlo Park, California-based company’s market value.
Attorneys general have yet to specify penalties but said at a hearing last week the amount could be closer to $200 billion – equivalent to about three years of after-tax profit for Meta.
California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey also want Meta to implement age restrictions, and eliminate the infinite scroll that encourages users to keep looking at new posts.
O’Neill said the states were not trying to put Meta, or social media, out of business. But she said Meta exploited children for its own benefit, researching how children’s brains work and would react to online stimuli, and tracking every interaction that children had on its apps.
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