The trial could be Meta’s most consequential legal fight yet over youth safety and addiction. If Meta loses the case, it could fundamentally change how the company’s social media platforms operate.
Both sides outlined their arguments to jurors in federal court in Oakland, including Meta’s claim that the states’ case is not supported by the evidence.
The states also called their first witness Tuesday: former Facebook engineering director-turned-whistleblower Arturo Béjar, who claimed that Meta prioritized moving quickly and rolling out new products over safety. Despite having worked on safety for Meta, he testified, he struggled to prevent his teen daughter from encountering inappropriate content and solicitations from strangers on Instagram.
Béjar is set to return to the stand on Wednesday.
“We talked about their motto, their culture, if you will, which was to move fast and break things,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said during a press conference Tuesday following opening statements. “Unfortunately, the thing that was broken here was the mental health of kids.”
The case was brought in 2023 by a group of 29 state attorneys general who allege that Meta intentionally designed its platforms to get young people addicted, boosting its business and harming the mental health of children and teens in their states. They also claim that Meta misled the public about the risks of its platforms and that it collected children’s data in violation of the federal Children Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
The trial will include arguments from lawyers for four of those states: California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey. Meta executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, are expected to be called to testify.
Meta faces thousands of lawsuits claiming that it has addicted and harmed young people — as do Snap, TikTok and YouTube — and has already lost two such cases, putting it on the hook for just shy of $1 billion in damages. But the damages in Tuesday’s case could be orders of magnitude higher: the four states could collectively seek as much as $1.4 trillion in damages.
That proposed financial penalty is nearly as much as Meta’s total valuation on Wall Street. The attorneys general have said they could end up seeking a smaller award, and even if the court awards smaller damages, the states want an order to change how Meta’s platforms operate.
Meta has called the allegations “unsubstantiated” and the massive proposed financial penalty “vastly disproportionate” to the claims.
“The AGs offer no proof anyone in their states was misled, claim benign features like having an additional Instagram account somehow harmed their residents, and attempt to penalize Meta for industry-wide challenges like age verification,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement Monday. “Rather than sticking to the facts or the law, the states have instead decided to chase an outlandish payout.”
Opening statements
In opening statements, Megan O’Neill, a deputy attorney general for the California Department of Justice, outlined the states’ claims that Meta’s ad-based business model relies on harvesting young people’s data and building features to hook them to maximize the amount of time they spend on its platforms.
The states claim that Meta designed features such as recommendation algorithms, infinitely scrolling feeds, “likes” and notifications to be intentionally addictive, according to the complaint.
Meta had deep knowledge of those risks but repeatedly and falsely told lawmakers and the public that its platforms were safe for young people, O’Neill said on Tuesday. The states also claim Meta is aware that it has collected personal data from users under 13 without parental consent, in violation of COPPA.
“Meta needed kids, and it needed to reassure the people who cared about them that their kids were safe,” O’Neill said during opening statements. So Meta “told the media, it told Congress, it told its users, it told parents, that Instagram and Facebook were safe for kids, that it prioritized kids’ safety and well-being,” despite having research that showed kids frequently have “bad, even traumatic experiences” on its platforms.
She cited an internal Meta document that she said is called “the young ones are the best ones,” referring to the company’s efforts to attract young users.
Paul Schmidt, a lawyer for Meta, argued in his opening statement that the states’ case misrepresents the company’s platforms and policies and lacks support. He accused the attorneys general of cherrypicking internal documents and comments to build their case.
The company has also argued that the case fails to prove any real-world harm from Meta’s platforms. Schmidt said Meta has an interest in ensuring that people have a good experience on its platforms over time and highlighted safety measures on Meta’s platforms such as notifications controls, parental controls and teen content policies.
The company has also claimed protection under a federal law known as Section 230, which says online platforms can’t be held accountable for content written by users, and the First Amendment.
Meta argues that the states’ COPPA claim would require evidence that the company is aware of a large number of under-13-year-olds it failed to remove from its platforms, and it says that all social media companies struggle with identifying underage users. In his opening statement, Schmidt said that the company must balance the desire to catch and remove underage accounts with privacy considerations around verifying users’ ages.
The trial is expected to last for at least six weeks with testimony from top Meta executives, including Zuckerberg, Instagram head Adam Mosseri and Meta Global Head of Safety Antigone Davis. The states are also expected to call additional former Meta employees-turned-whistleblowers and researchers who study the impact of social media on young people’s mental health. O’Neill said on Tuesday that the states don’t plan to call individual young people to the stand.
The eight-person jury will serve an advisory function — ultimately, District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will consider the jury’s decision and rule on the verdict and potential damages.
Big Tech’s ‘Big Tobacco’ moment
The trial could add to a year of accountability for the tech giant following earlier court losses. The wave of litigation against Meta and other social media companies from individuals, school districts and states has been called Big Tech’s Big Tobacco moment.
A New Mexico jury in March found Meta liable for violating the state’s consumer protection laws and failing to protect children from sexual predators; the company was ordered to pay a total of $942 million in damages and make changes such as limiting push notifications. A Los Angeles jury also ordered Meta and YouTube to pay a total of $6 million in damages for intentionally getting a young woman addicted and harming her mental health. Meta said it will appeal both cases.
In May, Meta, YouTube, TikTok and Snap agreed to settle the first of a wave of social media addiction lawsuits brought by school districts ahead of an expected trial with a Kentucky district. The terms of the settlements were not disclosed.
And trial is currently underway in another case brought by Tennessee’s attorney general alleging that Meta knowingly harmed young people’s mental health.
A Florida teen dropped his case against Meta accusing it of addictive and harmful features in July after he reached settlements with TikTok, YouTube and Snap.
Meta, along with the other social media giants, has repeatedly argued that there is no such thing as social media addiction and that it has invested heavily in features to protect young people on its platforms. It has pointed, for example, to parental control tools, default privacy protections for teens and reminders to take breaks. Critics claim those measures are ineffective or insufficient to protect young people online.
This story has been updated with additional information.
