Twenty-nine US states have come together to seek damages against Meta’s platforms, which they claim are addictive by design.
Meta stands on trial as a coalition of 29 US states come together alleging the tech giant designed its platforms to be addictive, which in turn has harmed young users.
The trial started on Tuesday (18 August) in Oakland, California and is expected to last six weeks. It is being heard before district judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.
The jury will deliberate whether Meta intentionally “hooked” a generation of children and teens on its Facebook and Instagram platforms.
The states are seeking damages from Meta, which could amount to up to $1.4trn – almost equivalent to the tech giant’s $1.5trn market value.
Megan O’Neill, California’s deputy attorney general, told the jury in her opening statement, Meta had found its product features were “designed to increase time spent” on the platforms, which were “inherently at odds with wellbeing”, yet it assured the public it was safe.
She summed the social media firm’s model as: “Hook the users; hold them for as long as they can: harvest their data; hide the truth from the public when making public statements.”
These weren’t just newly of-age users, O’Neill said, but “even little kids, the ones that, according to Meta’s own policy, weren’t supposed to be on” the apps.
O’Neill referred to internal documents from Meta, which were found to have said: “The young ones are the best ones,” illustrating the attitude among platform developers.
Paul Schmidt, Meta’s lead defence attorney, rejected O’Neill’s claims and argued that banning under-13s was an “industry-wide challenge”.
“There can be no dispute that Meta has recognised people struggle, or can struggle, with their use of social media, and has come up with tools to try and address that,” he said.
Schmidth continued to point out that no research has shown an addiction to social media is even possible. That being said, one internal Instagram research document stated: “Teens have an addict’s narrative about use.”
Alongside the financial compensation, the states are demanding Meta make significant changes to its platforms, including removing addictive features like infinite scroll and like counts.
It is not yet clear whether Mark Zuckerberg, Meta chief executive and Facebook co-founder, will testify in court.
What’s happened so far
This case first started in October 2021 when whistleblower Frances Haugen raised teen safety concerns around the use of social media apps. A coalition of US states then filed a lawsuit two years later, but things really heated earlier this year when it was alleged Meta and TikTok risked safety concerns to fuel their algorithms.
Since then, there have been various cases put forward in the US and in Europe. In May the EU Commission found Meta failed to prevent children using its platforms, while in the US, Meta asked congress to for legal immunity from child safety lawsuits.
