Meta to face four U.S. states in federal trial over youth safety claims

The case is being heard in Oakland by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers, who selected an eight-person jury last week. The panel will serve in an advisory capacity only, meaning Rogers will decide the outcome herself. Proceedings are expected to run at least six weeks, and the plaintiffs have indicated that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram head Adam Mosseri may be called to the stand.

California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey are the first states to argue their case. Another 25 states that joined the original action could bring separate trials later, although the outcome in Oakland may shape whether those disputes reach a courtroom at all.

The litigation began close to three years ago, when dozens of states with attorneys general from both major U.S. parties filed jointly in California. Their 233-page complaint accuses Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp, of breaking federal law by collecting information on users younger than 13 without parental approval, and of masking how addictive and harmful its services are for young people while profiting from their attention through data collection and targeted advertising.

The states have not put a figure on the damages they want. Meta, however, told the court in a filing that its exposure could reach $1.4 trillion, an amount approaching the company's entire market value, and argued that a penalty on that scale would be without precedent in U.S. consumer protection enforcement. Any financial penalty would be set by the court if Meta is found liable.

The attorneys general are also asking for structural changes to Meta's products, including age restrictions and the removal of infinite scroll.

Rogers last week rejected a Meta request to bar Arturo Bejar, a former Facebook director of engineering, from appearing as a witness for the states. Bejar testified earlier this year in a separate case brought by New Mexico.

Meta rejects the allegations and says the evidence at trial will demonstrate its record on protecting young users. In a statement, the company said it has consulted parents, outside experts and law enforcement and carried out its own research on the issues involved. Since the suit was filed, Meta has rolled out teen accounts on Instagram, which are private by default and carry messaging limits, content restrictions and parental controls. The company also says it applies artificial intelligence to identify users under 13 and teenagers who misstate their age to obtain adult accounts.

The Oakland trial opens against a run of adverse rulings. Meta reported an unusual drop in profit last month, driven in part by $2.4 billion in legal costs.

In New Mexico, jurors in March ordered the company to pay $375 million in civil penalties, and the judge added $567 million in damages last month, most of it directed to treatment services for young people and to prevention and awareness campaigns. That ruling also imposed new safeguards for users in the state, among them time limits for minors and restrictions on AI chatbots. Meta is appealing.

More than 1,000 U.S. school districts have filed suits against social media companies over student anxiety, depression and self-harm. A rural district in Kentucky was due to be the first to go to trial before settling in June for $27 million, of which Meta was to pay $9 million according to public records, with the owners of Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube covering the rest.

In a Los Angeles Superior Court case this year, Meta was held responsible for 70% of the $6 million awarded to a young woman who said her childhood social media use worsened her mental health, with Alphabet, YouTube's owner, liable for the remainder. Zuckerberg and Mosseri both testified in that trial.

Meta is separately contesting a case in Tennessee, where the attorney general alleges Instagram was designed to be addictive, and faces claims in Canada from individuals and school boards over harm to young users.

Earlier, Qazinform reported that Meta had settled a lawsuit filed by a Kentucky school district over costs linked to youth mental health concerns allegedly connected to social media use.