Meta is facing one of the biggest legal threats in tech history as four US states seek penalties totaling about $1.4 trillion. California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey say Meta designed Facebook and Instagram to addict young users and misled the public about safety risks. The states base the requested penalties on estimated violations tied to the number of teens and young users they say were harmed.
In their filing, the states calculated the total by multiplying the alleged violations by the fine amounts permitted under their consumer protection laws. Therefore, the figure is now close to Meta’s market value of around $1.5 trillion, highlighting how high the stakes are for the company.
The case continues a broader push by more than 40 states that already accuse Meta of fueling a youth mental health crisis with “addictive and compulsive social media use.”
U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland has set the trial for August after rejecting Meta’s attempt to cancel the proceedings. Previously, she ruled that the attorneys general can argue Meta’s public statements mean Facebook and Instagram are not designed to cause “compulsive use harmful to teens.” She also found that Meta failed to fully follow federal children’s privacy rules under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, giving the states a partial win.
Meta Challenges Addiction Narrative
Meta firmly denies the allegations and is pushing back on the states’ theory of harm. In its filing, Meta called the $1.4 trillion demand “unsupported by the evidence” and said, “a sanction of that size has no analog in the history of consumer protection enforcement.”
The company also argues that “social media addiction” is not an established psychiatric diagnosis, so it says statements that its platforms are not addictive cannot be proven false.
Meta and other platforms are facing thousands of related lawsuits from families, school districts, and municipal governments concurrently. The lawsuits accuse Meta, Snap, YouTube, and TikTok of deliberately designing addictive features that helped to create a teen mental health crisis.
This August trial might set a precedent for how courts handle future social media and kids’ safety issues as juries and judges continue to deliver verdicts and important decisions.
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