Meta Faces Its Biggest Trial Yet Over Whether It Addicted a Generation of Kids

Today’s Focus

Opening arguments began Tuesday in an Oakland, California courtroom in what the BBC described as the largest legal challenge Meta has faced. A jury will spend roughly six weeks weighing claims brought by attorneys representing a coalition of U.S. states against the company that owns Facebook and Instagram.

The case grows out of a 2023 lawsuit filed by 29 states, among them California and New York. According to the BBC, the states allege repeated violations of federal and state laws meant to protect children’s privacy online.

Megan O’Neill, a lead attorney for California, told jurors that Meta discovered “millions” of 11- and 12-year-olds using Instagram and “did little to keep them off,” the BBC reported. Meta’s attorney countered that the company had identified just over 100,000 such accounts.

O’Neill built much of her opening on internal Meta material turned over in discovery, including research reports, employee emails, and chat logs. One internal study she cited stated that “Teens have an addict’s narrative about use,” per the BBC.

Meta pushed back on the framing that its products cause dependency, arguing that social media addiction does not exist as a clinical condition. The company also said the plaintiffs ignored the far larger number of teenagers who reported positive experiences on its apps.

The states are seeking billions of dollars in damages, according to the BBC. They also want the court to force design changes to Instagram and Facebook, including removing visible “like” counts and ending the infinite-scroll feed.

The Debate

Supporters argue

The states contend that Meta’s own records show executives understood the risks to young users and chose engagement over safety. California’s O’Neill told jurors the company knew its platforms damaged teen mental health yet kept features that pulled children back, citing internal documents that reached up to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the BBC reported.

Advocates for the lawsuit frame the case as an accountability moment for design choices, not just content. The states argue that autoplay, endless feeds, and “like” tallies were engineered to maximize time spent, and that minors lack the capacity to resist those mechanics.

New York and California say the harm falls disproportionately on children who were on the apps below Meta’s stated age minimums. By seeking billions in damages plus mandated product redesigns, the coalition argues courts can change platform behavior where regulation has stalled.

Supporters say the trove of internal emails and studies distinguishes this case from earlier failed complaints. In their telling, the documents move the argument from speculation about harm to evidence of what the company knew.

Critics argue

Meta rejects the central premise that its apps are addictive. The company’s attorney told the jury that social media addiction is not a recognized condition, and argued the plaintiffs cherry-picked worst-case documents while overlooking the majority of teens who described good experiences, the BBC reported.

Meta disputes the scale the states allege, saying it found just over 100,000 underage accounts rather than “millions.” The company argues that number undercuts the claim of systemic, deliberate targeting of young children.

More broadly, Meta contends that mental-health outcomes among teenagers stem from many overlapping causes, and that isolating its products as the driver is not supported by settled science. Attributing complex psychological trends to specific features like infinite scroll, the company argues, oversimplifies the evidence.

Meta also frames the remedies as overreach. Demands to strip “like” counts and redesign core features, the company suggests, would let a jury re-engineer widely used products rather than address a proven legal violation.

What the experts say

Research on social media and youth mental health remains genuinely contested. In 2023, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory warning that social media poses a “profound risk of harm” to adolescents while acknowledging the evidence was not yet conclusive.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine reviewed the field in a 2023 report and found the research did not support a simple causal link between social media use and adolescent mental health harm, calling for better data and study designs. Pew Research Center surveys have documented how deeply embedded the platforms are: in 2024, Pew found that a large majority of U.S. teens use YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat, with meaningful shares reporting near-constant use.

Scholars including NYU’s Jonathan Haidt argue the timing of rising teen distress tracks smartphone and social media adoption, while critics such as Candice Odgers of UC Irvine have written that the correlational evidence is weak. The jury will effectively confront a scientific dispute the field itself has not resolved.

By the Numbers

29: number of U.S. states that filed the 2023 lawsuit against Meta, according to the BBC.

“Millions”: California’s estimate of 11- and 12-year-olds it says were on Instagram, per the BBC.

100,000+: number of underage accounts Meta says it actually identified, according to the BBC.

6 weeks: the expected length of the Oakland jury trial, per the BBC.

Billions: the dollar figure in damages the states are seeking, according to the BBC.

2023: the year U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued his advisory on social media and youth mental health.

2024: the year a Pew Research Center survey found large majorities of U.S. teens using multiple social platforms.