A 29-state legal challenge against Meta has begun in federal court in Oakland, California, with the jury trial expected to last six to eight weeks. California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey are leading the case against the social media giant, with the 233-page lawsuit filed in 2023 alleging that Meta deliberately designed and monetized Facebook and Instagram to encourage compulsive use among young people. The states allege that Meta concealed internal research showing links between Instagram use and depression, anxiety, body image problems and self-harm among teenagers, while also collecting personal data from children under 13 without obtaining verifiable parental consent. According to The Times of India, Meta strongly denies these allegations and argues that the states' case relies on internal documents and emails taken out of context.
Meta is pushing back against allegations that its social media platforms Instagram and Facebook are deliberately designed to keep children hooked and contribute to the youth mental health crisis. Meta lawyer Paul Schmidt told the court that the company takes children's mental health and their experiences on social media seriously, stating 'Meta takes seriously and tries to act on' children's mental health and what they do and see on social media. The company's defense focuses on the safety measures it has introduced over the years, arguing that it has not ignored concerns about young users. Meta points to tools designed to tackle harassment, inappropriate content and unwanted interactions, as well as measures intended to limit children's exposure to potentially harmful material. The company says Facebook and Instagram have a minimum age of 13 and has increased efforts to identify and remove users who are younger than 13. According to The Guardian, Schmidt told jurors that Meta had disabled more than 1 million accounts belonging to children under 13 and was 'acting in a meaningful way to remove' young users.
A former Meta employee has testified about his daughter's disturbing experience on Instagram, revealing the platform's alleged failure to address youth safety issues. Arturo Béjar, who spent six years working on child safety tools at Meta, told jurors that his 14-year-old daughter started receiving requests for sex and pictures of private parts from people she didn't know. As reported by Associated Press, Béjar stated he found this experience 'shocking' and revealed that executives were aware of 'significant harms' to young people on the platform but repeatedly failed to make meaningful changes. Béjar worked at Meta from 2009 to 2015 as a safety manager, returned in 2019 after his daughter's Instagram experience, and left permanently in 2021. He has since emerged as a key whistleblower witness, testifying in previous trials against Meta in Los Angeles and New Mexico, both of which resulted in verdicts against the company. On Wednesday, Béjar told the court that Meta prioritised profits over safety while designing its products, focusing on how often and how long users stayed on its platforms, even when it could harm their mental well-being. 'If you step away from the product, they are not going to make any money,' Béjar told the court, according to Associated Press.
The potential consequences for Meta could be dramatically greater than any previous case, with states seeking extensive financial damages that could total as much as $1.4 trillion. As reported by Reuters, Meta's own calculations show that if it loses the trial, the company could face penalties of as much as $1.4 trillion, an amount close to its market capitalization and unheard of in legal history. The $1.4 trillion figure represents almost the entire market capitalization of Meta, which would put the company in bankruptcy and potentially under state ownership. However, according to The Times of India, California Attorney General Rob Bonta and lawyers representing the other states told the presiding judge that Meta had warned potential damages could reach $1.4 trillion, though the states said a more realistic figure would be around $200 billion. The states estimate potential damages at up to $200 billion, an amount equivalent to Meta's 2025 annual revenue. The states are also seeking court-ordered changes to platform features and practices, including measures aimed at reducing addictive engagement and strengthening protections for younger users. Such changes could affect how Instagram and Facebook are designed and how they recommend and display content.
Other social media giants — like Alphabet Inc.'s Google, Snap Inc. and TikTok — are not part of this trial but face similar exposure. According to Bloomberg, these companies all face billions of dollars in potential exposure from more than 3,000 personal injury claims by individuals and families in the US, and about 1,300 more lawsuits by public school districts across the nation. Some cases have already settled, while more bellwether cases loom in the months ahead. The lawyers behind these cases have gained traction by arguing that the products themselves — through their design and functionality — have created harms, rather than taking aim at content for which platforms are broadly protected from liability. This strategy succeeded in its first test when a Los Angeles jury in March awarded $6 million to a 20-year-old woman who said her nonstop use for more than a decade of sites including Meta's Instagram and Google's YouTube caused her to suffer anxiety, depression and body dysmorphia. As reported by NDTV, the cases have been building for several years, with the legal strategy gaining traction in court by arguing that products themselves create harms rather than focusing on content liability.
The states argue that financial penalties alone would not address the alleged harms and are seeking court-ordered changes to Meta's products, including removing infinite scrolling for young users and ending what they describe as deceptive representations about platform safety. According to The Times of India, a ruling requiring product changes could have implications beyond the US, as maintaining separate, safer versions of Facebook and Instagram exclusively for US users could be technically and economically impractical. The case could therefore affect how Meta designs its platforms for users in other markets as well, depending on the scope of any eventual court order. The trial's potential impact extends beyond Meta's financial liability because a court-ordered redesign could affect some of the core features through which users interact with Facebook and Instagram. A digital duty of care approach, where social media companies would be required to build products with safety standards from the outset, is being considered by countries including Australia, which has already committed to such an approach.
