States Begin Jury Trial Against Meta Over Social Media Addiction Claims

Four states questioned Meta’s motives during opening statements on the first day of a trial over teen social media harms. California Deputy Attorney General Megan O'Neill gives her opening statement during the first day of a jury trial between state AGs and tech giant Meta. (Vicki Behringer) OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) — A Northern California jury heard opening statements Tuesday by state attorneys general and Meta in a seismic federal trial over whether the tech giant deceived the public about addictive features of its social media platforms and their risks to teen mental health. The blockbuster trial in U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers’ courtroom — the first in the multidistrict litigation of more than 3,000 active cases — pits the parent company of Facebook and Instagram against California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey. Another 25 states that sued Meta in 2023 will head to trial later. The states claim Meta violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, a federal law that requires online companies to obtain verifiable parental consent for users under 13 years old. Additionally, California, Kentucky, Colorado and New Jersey claim Meta made deceptive statements about its platforms that likely misled the public, violating consumer protection laws. Similar to the bellwether trial in Los Angeles that also litigated social media addiction claims, high-profile witnesses such as Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Instagram head Adam Mosseri and Meta vice president Antigone Davis are scheduled to testify in the coming days. The initial multidistrict litigation consolidated hundreds of personal injury lawsuits on behalf of children and adolescents by school districts, local governments and state attorneys general. The plaintiffs claim Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, Google’s YouTube, ByteDance’s TikTok and Snap’s Snapchat are designed to foster compulsive use by minors. If Meta is found liable by the jury, penalties could reach up to $200 billion and change the way Meta handles teen accounts. In her hourlong opening for the states, California Deputy Attorney General Megan O’Neill said Meta told the media, legislators, users and parents that it prioritizes kids’ safety and kept children under 13 years old from its platforms. But she argued the company’s internal research and employee communications contradicted their public statements. “Hook the users. Hold them for as long as they can. Harvest their data. Hide the truth from the public when making public statements,” she said. “If you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product — kids are the product.” O’Neill said that based on Meta’s own research and surveys, it knew its impacts on the mental health of adolescents was significant, despite Zuckerberg and Mosseri testifying before Congress saying the opposite. “Meta knew when it was time to make a decision to choose what was safe for kids or to make profits, and time and time again, profits won,” she said. Meta’s attorney Paul Schmidt, a partner at San Francisco-based Covington & Burling, said it was important for the jury to remember the states need to show specifically how the laws were violated. He also argued the states don’t have any witnesses that will testify about their own harms from their Instagram or Facebook use. Schmidt said some things won’t be disputed during the trial, including teens’ struggles with time management, kids under 13 accessing social media because they put in the wrong birthday and users posting negative content. What is disputed, he argued, is how Meta acts on those understandings, and how seriously Meta takes those issues. Schmidt noted Meta created time management tools starting in 2018 with features like “time spent” surveys and reminders. The company continued to develop other resources with “take a break” reminders and topic nudges in 2021 as well as teen accounts in 2024. O’Neill countered that Meta didn’t start the teen accounts feature until after the AGs filed the