Meta to face California and other states in landmark trial over social media harms

OAKLAND, CA - California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey are headed to a landmark trial in Oakland on Tuesday against social media giant Meta over claims of “addictive” social media and mental health harms on youth.

The lawsuit, part of a multi-district litigation involving dozens of state attorneys general and over a thousand school districts, seeks more than $1.4 trillion in potential damages and a judge order to force Meta to make substantial design changes on Instagram and Facebook. Plaintiffs accuse Meta of knowingly designing features that have “addicted” children to their platforms and contributed to rising rates of youth depression and anxiety in recent years.

“Meta has harnessed powerful and unprecedented technologies to entice, engage, and ultimately ensnare youth and teens. Its motive is profit, and in seeking to maximize its financial gains,” the lawsuit said.

Meta has denied the allegations and said the company has “listened to parents, worked with experts and law enforcement, and conducted in-depth research to understand the issues that matter most.”

Meta said the $1.4 trillion figure is nearly as high as the company’s entire market capitalization on the stock market and could likely result in bankruptcy. In a legal filing to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, where the trial will take place in Oakland, Meta said “a sanction of that size has no analog in the history of consumer protection enforcement.”

James Grimmelmann, a law professor at Cornell Law School and Cornell Tech, told the Associated Press that the $1.4 trillion penalty, even if states win, “seems extremely unlikely to happen.”

“An award that large would put Meta into bankruptcy, wipe out its owners, and effectively result in the states owning Meta,” Grimmelmann told AP.

In March, Meta lost a case involving a 20-year-old plaintiff’s accusations that the platforms addicted her and contributed to her depression and was ordered to pay $6 million in damages. The company also lost a case brought by New Mexico over claims of predatory behavior on Meta’s platforms, being ordered to pay a total of $942 million in damages and restrict certain design features for children in New Mexico. (Source: EdSource)