Meta Faces Trial Over Claims of Designing Addictive Platforms for Children

Meta is facing a massive legal challenge in the United States, with 29 states seeking remedies that could expose the company to as much as $1.4 trillion.

The lawsuit, being heard in Oakland, California, accuses Meta of designing Facebook and Instagram features like infinite scrolling, autoplay, and algorithm-driven recommendations to keep young users engaged. Prosecutors told a US federal court Tuesday that Meta knowingly hooked and exploited children, deliberately making Instagram and Facebook addictive to young users. 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 conducts business.

Four lead states, California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey, accuse Meta of designing its platforms to hook young users, fueling anxiety, depression, and even suicide, and misleading consumers about platform safety. All 29 states accuse Meta of violating federal law by improperly collecting and using children's personal data. Megan O'Neill, a deputy attorney general for California, told the eight-person jury 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.

She cited a Meta study titled "The young ones are the best ones," alleging that for the company, kids are the product. Meta's lawyer, Paul Schmidt, stated there was no dispute that some social media users face struggles, but research showed no clear link between adolescents' social media use and a lack of well-being. Schmidt also said Meta co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared the company's desire to improve its services, not make them dangerous.

The states are demanding changes to Instagram and Facebook, including ending like counts and infinite scroll. Zuckerberg and Instagram chief Adam Mosseri are expected to testify in the weeks-long trial.