A historic US trial involving Facebook and Instagram kid safety
Among the multitude of legal actions Meta is confronting significant challenges regarding child safety on its platforms, with a particularly consequential case set to go to trial this week in California. US states are pursuing significant financial damages that could potentially reach $1.4 trillion, in addition to modifications in the operational practices of Facebook and Instagram. The lawsuit alleges that the social media giant has played a role in exacerbating the youth mental health crisis by intentionally and knowingly designing features that foster addiction among children to its platforms. It is asserted that Meta consistently gathers data on children under the age of 13 without obtaining parental consent, which contravenes federal regulations. “Meta has harnessed powerful and unprecedented technologies to entice, engage, and ultimately ensnare youth and teens. Its motive is profit, and in seeking to maximise its financial gains,” the lawsuit says. Numerous states initiated the lawsuit three years prior. The trial set to commence on Tuesday in federal court in Oakland, California, includes four states as plaintiffs: California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey. The remaining 25 states are anticipated to conduct trials at a later date.
Meta said it disputes the allegations, and the trial evidence will show its commitment to supporting young people. “We’ve listened to parents, worked with experts and law enforcement, and conducted in-depth research to understand the issues that matter most,” the company said in a statement. For Meta, which has already faced setbacks in two significant cases concerning the welfare of children and adolescents this year, the stakes are considerable. The company reported a rare decline in profits last month, attributed in part to $2.4 billion in legal expenses. The $1.4 trillion figure, which Meta disclosed in a legal filing, is nearly equivalent to the entire market capitalisation of the Menlo Park, California, company — that is, the value of all its outstanding shares on the stock market. Paying it would inevitably lead to bankruptcy for Meta Platforms and potentially result in the company falling under state ownership. “The state attorneys general are going for the gusto,” said Eric Goldman. “They are trying to set the definitive precedent in this case and they have asked for extraordinary damages and they are going to seek extraordinary structural remedies if they succeed.” Meta calls the possible penalty “untethered to any claimed violation” by the states. “A sanction of that size has no analog in the history of consumer protection enforcement,” Meta said in a July 6 filing with the US District Court for the Northern District of California.
If Meta loses the trial, the court would possess considerable discretion regarding the magnitude of any financial penalty, and legal experts suggest that a figure approaching $1.4 trillion is improbable. “It’s not plausible in the sense that Meta doesn’t have that much money and could not get it,” said James Grimmelmann. “An award that large would put Meta into bankruptcy, wipe out its owners, and effectively result in the states owning Meta.” As a practical matter, Grimmelmann added, “that seems extremely unlikely to happen.” In instances where significant damages were at stake due to multiple individual offences, courts have refrained from imposing the maximum penalties. One example is the Anthropic artificial intelligence training case, where plaintiffs were claiming damages of $150,000 per book that Anthropic copied, but the penalty ended up being $3,000 per book, totalling approximately $1.5 billion. The federal trial this week presents a greater level of complexity compared to an earlier case this year in Los Angeles, where a state court granted $6 million in damages from Meta and Google’s YouTube to a single plaintiff—a young woman who testified about her childhood addiction to social media. That case served as a bellwether, or test case, selected from thousands of analogous civil tort lawsuits to provide both plaintiffs and defendants with insight into the potential outcomes of their arguments in court.
The jury concluded that Meta and YouTube exhibited negligence in the design or operation of their platforms, and that this negligence significantly contributed to the harm experienced by the plaintiff. It was also established that each company was aware of the potential risks their platforms posed when accessed by minors, yet they did not sufficiently communicate these dangers. The Oakland case involves state solicitors acting as plaintiffs and focuses on state and federal statutes that they claim Meta has violated, specifying potential penalty amounts for each infraction. “And there’s a lot of them because it’s four different states and at least three different kinds of statutes. There’s a child privacy statute, there’s a false advertising statute and there’s unfair competition statutes,” said Rebecca Allensworth. An outcome that results in alterations to the operational frameworks of Facebook and Instagram may prove to be as significant as any monetary sanction. Meta has rolled out a series of new features in recent years aimed at safeguarding minors. In 2024, the platform introduced accounts specifically designed for teenagers on Instagram. These accounts are set to private by default and include restrictions on messaging and content, along with parental controls.
The company employs artificial intelligence to ascertain whether children under the age of 13 are utilising Instagram or if adolescents are misrepresenting their age to gain access to adult accounts. Safety advocates have urged the company to enhance its efforts. A New Mexico judge earlier this month mandated new safety measures on the platforms, which include time limits for minors, restrictions on AI chatbots, and obligatory warnings. However, this order is applicable solely to users within the state. “These AGs have a real chance at fixing the product,” Laura Marquez-Garrett of the Social Media Victims Law Centre said Friday in a virtual discussion with advocates hosted by the Tech Oversight Project. “For these companies, this is a real point of reckoning. As these cases go forward, this is a leap forward, folks, not a step.” During jury selection last week, prospective jurors were asked whether and how much they believe Meta has contributed to the youth mental health crisis. While many agreed that it did, they also put responsibility on parents, and said things like climate change and the state of the world are also causing children’s and teenagers’ mental health issues.
