Meta went on trial in federal court in Oakland this week, facing claims from a coalition of state attorneys general that it knowingly designed Facebook and Instagram to be addictive to children and concealed the resulting psychological harm. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers is overseeing the case, in which lawyers for the states are seeking penalties that could reach $1.4 trillion — a figure that approaches Meta's entire market value.
Four states — California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey — are trying the first bellwether claims on behalf of a broader coalition of 29 states and territories that sued Meta as part of a sprawling multidistrict case, according to Tech Policy Press. The states allege Meta violated their consumer-protection laws by misrepresenting the safety of its platforms to parents and regulators, and separately allege the company violated the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act by collecting data from users under 13 without parental consent.
What the states are seeking
Beyond monetary penalties, the states are asking the court to order changes to how Meta's platforms operate for young users, including stricter age-verification systems, elimination of infinite-scroll feeds, and the removal of algorithms the states say are tuned to maximize engagement among minors. An eight-person jury has been seated in an advisory capacity, but under the states' consumer-protection claims, Judge Gonzalez Rogers will issue the final ruling. The trial is expected to run six to eight weeks, with a decision possible around October, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram head Adam Mosseri are both on the states' witness list.
The scale of the potential penalty has drawn attention well beyond the tech industry. Santa Clara University law professor Eric Goldman, who has followed the litigation closely, described the states' theory of damages in stark terms, as reported by Fortune.
Essentially, it's asking Meta to turn in the keys and walk away.
Eric Goldman, Santa Clara University law professor
Meta has disputed the allegations and rejected the scale of the damages being sought. Company spokesperson Stephanie Otway said in a statement that the states' case strays from the underlying facts and law.
Rather than sticking to the facts or the law, the states have instead decided to chase an outlandish payout.
Stephanie Otway, Meta spokesperson
The Oakland trial follows a related case in New Mexico, where a jury found Meta liable for roughly 75,000 separate consumer-protection violations, resulting in $942 million in combined penalties after the presiding judge added further damages tied to youth mental-health harms, according to the Press Democrat. Legal scholars say the Oakland case could set precedent well beyond social media: Cornell Law professor James Grimmelmann has argued that the legal theories being tested here — around addictive design and platform liability — could eventually be applied to generative AI products, video games, and social gaming platforms, all of which face similar questions about how their design choices affect young users.