Lawyers representing 29 US states have accused Meta of covering up internal research showing Instagram was addictive for teenagers. In a packed courtroom Tuesday, on the opening day of a landmark legal challenge, they said the company knew its products harmed children but hid that information from the public. She referenced one document that said, “the young ones are the best ones”, along with another where Meta stated: “Teens are hooked despite how it makes them feel.
Instagram is addictive.” “They knew,” O’Neill said. The jury trial is taking place in federal court in Oakland, California, and is expected to last six to eight weeks. The jury will hear from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri and other company executives.
After opening statements on Tuesday, the government called former employee turned whistleblower Arturo Béjar as its first witness. The 233-page lawsuit, first filed in October 2023, alleges that Meta regularly collects data on children under the age of 13 without parental permission in violation of federal and state laws. The lawmakers claim in court documents that Meta “refuses to abandon its use of known harmful features” and that its motives are based solely on profit to “maximize its financial gains”.
The suit was filed jointly by 29 state attorneys general in what is known as multidistrict litigation, though the trial proceedings will be led by attorneys for California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey. The sweeping legal proceedings could have profound consequences for the social media company. The attorneys general say that if Meta is found liable, damages could be as high as $200bn – an amount equivalent to the company’s 2025 annual revenue.
The lawmakers are also asking that Meta be compelled to change the design of its products to make them safer for children, which may have longer-term effects than a fine. Meta denies all allegations. In opening statements, Paul Schmidt, a lawyer for Meta, said the internal documents and emails the government lawyers showed the jury were taken out of context and cherry-picked from longer conversations.
He said Meta has done several studies on young users with the goal of asking “what can we do to support teens in this space”. Schmidt said that Meta has disabled more than 1m accounts of children under the age of 13 and that it is “acting in a meaningful way to remove” young users. In a statement, a company spokesperson said: “Rather than sticking to the facts or the law, the states have instead decided to chase an outlandish payout.
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