Trial against Meta over social media harms to children begins in California

Opening statements have started in a pivotal trial for Meta Platforms as states seek billions in damages for social media harms to children.

Attorneys general from California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey are seeking a financial penalty that could, in theory, total as much as $1.4 trillion or £1 trillion, plus changes to how the company operates Facebook and Instagram.

Twenty-nine states sued the tech giant in 2023 over child safety and privacy — the other 25 will go to trial later. The company also faces lawsuits in state courts.

The lawsuit accuses the social media giant of contributing to the youth mental health crisis by knowingly and deliberately designing features that addict children to its platforms. It also argues that Meta routinely collects data on children under 13 without their parents’ consent, in violation of federal law.

Megan O’Neill, a deputy attorney general for the California Department of Justice, laid out the states’ case for jurors during opening statements in federal court in Oakland, California.

“You’re going to hear that Meta knew a lot about kids’ brains,” she said. This includes how they are constantly seeking rewards, how they are sensitive to social feedback and “how they are still developing their ability to control impulses the way adults do”.

Meta, she said, researched these vulnerabilities and talked about how it could change Instagram to respond to them.

“‘The young ones are the best ones’ is a title of a Meta study we are going to show you,” she said, telling jurors that for Meta, “kids are the product”.

Meta has repeatedly said it believes it has a strong case.

“We are proud of our record in protecting teens on our platforms and the amount of effort that we’ve put into developing protections over the years, even before these cases were ever filed, and continuing to the present day. We look forward to showing the judge and the jury those facts in court,” the company said in a written statement.

US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers is overseeing the proceedings which are expected to last six weeks with evidence from Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and other executives and former employees.

The judge, appointed to the bench by Barack Obama in 2011, has overseen a series of complex, high-profile cases involving Big Tech, including Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI and its founders as well as Epic Games’ lawsuit against Apple over its app store.

If Meta loses the trial, the court would have wide discretion over the size of any financial penalty, and legal experts say anything close to 1.4 trillion dollars would be unlikely.

“This case is not about any individual person or kid,” Ms O’Neill said, but a law enforcement action designed to hold Meta responsible.

The trial is the latest in a string of lawsuits against Meta and other social media companies including Google’s YouTube, TikTok and Snap, over arguments that their platforms harm young people, illegally collect their data and are deliberately designed to addict them.