Meta has categorically denied deliberately designing Instagram and Facebook to be addictive to children and teenagers, rejecting claims that it prioritised user growth and profit over the safety of minors. The company set out its defence as one of the most significant US trials to date over the impact of social media on young people got underway. A bipartisan coalition of 29 US states is seeking potentially tens or hundreds of billions of dollars in penalties, along with major changes to how Instagram and Facebook operate.

Meta's defence

Meta's lawyer, Paul Schmidt, told jurors that some social media users do struggle, but argued that scientific research does not show a clear link between teenage social media use and declining wellbeing. He rejected the portrayal of a company that knowingly builds harmful products to boost profit, saying that Meta co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg shares the company's stated aim of improving its services rather than making them harmful.

"They don't believe they're going to do well if people don't like their service," Schmidt said, summarising a central plank of the defence.

The states' case

That position is directly contested by the states pursuing Meta. California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey, which lead the case, accuse the company of designing Facebook and Instagram with features that keep younger users constantly engaged, contributing to problems including anxiety and depression. All 29 states further allege that Meta violated federal law through the improper collection and use of children's personal data.

Megan O'Neill, deputy attorney general for California, described what she called a fundamentally different business model to the eight-person jury. According to the states, the goal was to attract users, keep them on the apps for as long as possible, harvest their data, and then conceal the reality of the risks from the public.

"It worked especially well for kids," O'Neill said, arguing that Meta needed young users while also needing to reassure parents and guardians that the platforms were safe.

Potential penalties

Jurors are expected to deliver an advisory verdict, but the final decision on whether Meta bears legal liability rests with federal District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. If she finds the company liable, she could impose civil financial penalties and order changes to how Facebook and Instagram operate.

Meta has argued that, based on the calculation method used in the lawsuits, penalties could theoretically reach as much as $1.4 trillion, a figure close to the company's market value. State attorneys general offered a considerably lower estimate at a hearing last week, closer to $200 billion, roughly equivalent to Meta's net profits over a three-year period.

What the states are seeking

The case extends beyond financial damages. California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey are seeking a broad overhaul of both platforms, including the removal of likes and infinite scroll, the introduction of time limits for younger users, and stricter enforcement of rules intended to keep children under 13 off the services.

Whistleblower testimony

Following opening statements, the states called Arturo Béjar, a former Meta safety engineer, as their first witness. Béjar has argued for years that Meta knew its child safety tools were not working effectively and has testified against the company in four previous trials. Meta had sought to block his testimony, citing among other things his deletion of Signal messages with former colleagues, but Judge Gonzalez Rogers rejected the attempt to exclude one of the opposing side's key witnesses.

Béjar told jurors that "move fast and break things" had long been a core Meta doctrine, describing a "don't ask, don't tell" approach to monitoring whether children under 13 were using the platforms. According to his testimony, many products were launched without safety as a central factor in their initial design and development, citing Reels, the short-form videos now central to Instagram, as an example.

Zuckerberg and Instagram head Adam Mosseri are both expected to testify during the trial, which is expected to last around six weeks. The pressure was also felt on Wall Street, with Meta's share price falling for most of Tuesday's session and closing down 4.4%, at $543.67.

Internal communications

The states have said their aim is not to put Meta out of business. O'Neill acknowledged that social media can offer benefits to some people, but accused Meta of systematically exploiting children's behaviour by studying how their brains function, how they respond to online stimuli, and how they interact with the apps.

Particular weight was placed on internal company communications. According to O'Neill, an email sent to Mosseri identified "teen time spent" as a target metric, referring to the amount of time teenagers spend on the platform. The prosecution also alleged that Meta employees had internally compared Instagram to a "drug" and referred to themselves as "dealers."

The defence responded that employees may use exaggerated or casual language in private conversations, without this proving that the products are addictive, adding that jurors would also hear what the employee who used that comparison did to try to make the platform safer.

Protests outside court

The opening of the trial was accompanied by a gathering of Meta critics outside the courthouse. Among them was Mary Rodee, whose 15-year-old son, Riley Basford, died by suicide in 2021 after, according to Rodee, he was targeted by an online predator on Facebook.

Rodee disputed the characterisation of her son's death as a "spontaneous suicide," describing it instead as the predictable outcome of a system that, in her words, protects companies rather than children.

The legal dispute began in 2023, two years after whistleblower Frances Haugen testified before a US Senate committee. Haugen had said Meta knew the risks its products posed to children and knew how it could limit them, but did not make the necessary changes because doing so could affect its profits.

Mounting legal pressure

The trial arrives amid growing legal pressure over children's use of social media in the United States. In March, a Los Angeles jury ordered Meta and Google to pay a combined $6 million to a 20-year-old woman who said she had become addicted to Instagram and YouTube as a child. Earlier this month, a judge in New Mexico ordered Meta to pay $567 million in a case concerning teenage mental health, after that state's attorney general described the company's platforms as a "public nuisance." Separately, Tennessee's attorney general has filed legal action against Meta with similar allegations concerning Instagram, in a distinct trial already under way in Nashville.

The outcome of the Oakland case could therefore carry significance far beyond a single Silicon Valley legal dispute. A ruling requiring changes to features used daily by hundreds of millions of people could reshape the business model underpinning social media more broadly, particularly with regard to younger users.

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