Meta knowingly “hooked” and exploited children, US prosecutors told a federal court on Tuesday as a major trial opened against the technology company over allegations that it deliberately made Instagram and Facebook addictive to young users.
The case has been described by experts as a potential “big tobacco moment” for the technology industry. A coalition of 29 US states is seeking penalties of around $200 billion and demanding changes to Meta’s platforms, including measures to limit screen time and better protect children.
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said the states were intervening where “Congress failed to act”. He compared the case with landmark legal action against tobacco companies, arguing that both disputes involved public health and, in some cases, marketing to children that caused harm.
During opening statements, California prosecutor Megan O’Neill portrayed Meta’s business model as one built to “hook the users, hold them for as long as they can, harvest their data, and then hide the truth from the public”. She accused the company of exploiting the way children’s brains work.
Meta’s lawyer, Paul Schmidt, acknowledged that some users had experienced negative effects from the company’s applications but said Meta had “tried to come up with tools to help them”. Before the trial began, Meta denied the allegations and said it had worked with parents, experts and law enforcement to develop safeguards for children.
Former Meta engineering director Arturo Bejar provided a potentially significant account of the company’s early approach to safety. He testified that during Facebook’s early years, “the goal was to be able to get things into the hands of users as fast as possible, which meant that a lot of the time, safety or security was an afterthought.”
Meta had sought to prevent Bejar from testifying shortly before the trial, but the judge rejected the attempt.
Outside the courthouse, activists, including mothers who say their children were driven to suicide by social media use, rallied against the company. Lori Schott, one of the mothers, directly criticised Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram head Adam Mosseri.
“They built one of those most powerful and richest companies in the world. … But power does not excuse harm,” Schott said.
Zuckerberg and Mosseri are among the prominent witnesses expected to testify, according to court documents. California Attorney General Rob Bonta declined to confirm on Tuesday whether Zuckerberg would appear on the witness stand.
The Oakland trial is the first federal trial in what is expected to become a much broader wave of litigation against social media companies. Families, educators and state governments have accused companies including TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube of contributing to harm to young people’s mental health.
Meta, which has more than 3 billion users worldwide, is the sole defendant in the case. Four states — California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey — are representing the coalition of 29 states that first sued Meta in 2023.
The allegations centre on three principal claims: that Meta misled the public about the dangers its platforms posed to minors; that it deliberately designed features to encourage children to become hooked and remain online, including screen-time limits that could easily be bypassed; and that it collected data from children under 13 without parental consent, in violation of federal law.
The trial is expected to last around six weeks, with a verdict anticipated by October. Beyond the potential financial penalties, the case could force Meta to make substantial changes to Facebook and Instagram.
For Vincent Joralemon, a director at Berkeley’s Life Sciences Law and Policy Center, the central issue for Meta is not only financial liability but the potential damage to its reputation and the prospect of being compelled to change its products. He said the case “really feels like tobacco in the 1990s”.
The comparison reflects the broader significance of the proceedings. Dozens of US states previously sued four major tobacco companies for downplaying the health risks of their products, leading to a landmark 1998 settlement that imposed financial penalties and restrictions on product marketing. According to data from the National Association of Attorneys General, those companies have paid more than $176 billion since.
The Meta case now puts similar questions about corporate responsibility, public health and product design before a federal court, with the outcome potentially setting the direction for future legal challenges to the social media industry.
