Meta faces high-stakes US trial over addictive platforms for children
Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, will face a new federal trial in the United States beginning this week over allegations that its social media platforms are designed to be addictive to children. The case, brought by the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey, is among the most significant legal challenges to social media companies in the country.
Jury selection is scheduled to begin on Wednesday, August 12, 2026, at a federal court in Oakland, near San Francisco. Opening statements are expected to start on August 18, and the trial is anticipated to last about six weeks, with a verdict likely in early October.
The four states accuse Meta of deliberately making Instagram and Facebook addictive for minors, in violation of state consumer protection laws and the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). They are seeking a range of restrictions on how the platforms operate for users under 18, as well as penalties that could amount to $1.4 trillion — a figure close to Meta's entire market capitalisation, which exceeded $1.5 trillion on Friday.
Meta's founder and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, is expected to be one of the key witnesses for the prosecution. He previously testified in a separate case in a Los Angeles court six months ago. While Zuckerberg has spent more time at his home in Hawaii, the company's headquarters in Menlo Park is about an hour's drive from the courthouse.
The trial is the culmination of a dispute that began in late 2021, when former Meta employee Frances Haugen leaked thousands of pages of internal research, referred to as the "Facebook Files." The documents suggested that Meta had internal evidence of the potential harm Instagram could cause to some teenage girls, even as the company publicly downplayed such risks.
The leak prompted a multi-state investigation, leading to a complaint filed by around 30 state attorneys general two years later. Four states have now joined forces to present their case in Oakland.
Meta is not alone in facing legal scrutiny. TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube, owned by Google, have also been sued by thousands of families, school districts, and prosecutors across the country in various federal and state courts.
In a landmark trial concluded in March, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and YouTube liable for a teenager's social media addiction and awarded the teenager $6 million. Earlier this month, on August 6, a judge in New Mexico ordered Meta to make product changes and pay more than half a billion dollars in damages to the state to fund treatment and prevention programmes for harms linked to Facebook and Instagram. A separate jury in New Mexico had previously ordered Meta to pay $375 million after finding the company liable for endangering children by making them vulnerable to predators on its platforms.
Meta has appealed or has said it intends to appeal all of these decisions. In a statement on Thursday, a company spokesperson said: "We are confident in our record of protecting teens online and will continue to defend ourselves against claims that misrepresent the facts."
In its defence, Meta is expected to argue that the decline in teenage mental health is an industry-wide issue and that some of the states' claims are protected by free speech laws under the First Amendment.
The case in Oakland is being watched closely as it could set a precedent for hundreds of similar lawsuits. In May this year, Snap, TikTok, YouTube and Meta settled with a school district in Kentucky for $27 million, avoiding a trial that was expected to influence around 1,200 similar cases.
The plaintiffs' strategy focuses on how the apps are designed rather than the content posted on them, essentially sidestepping the legal immunity that protects platforms from liability for user-generated content. They allege that features such as infinite scrolling, excessive notifications, and "like" counts are intended to keep minors engaged for as long as possible.
