Meta rejects claims it sought to hook children to Facebook, Instagram as landmark trial begins

By Diana Novak Jones and Jonathan Stempel

Aug 18 (Reuters) - Meta Platforms rejected accusations by U.S. states that it intentionally sought to addict children to its Facebook and Instagram platforms in pursuit of profit, at the start of a trial that could reshape some of the most popular apps on the planet.

A bipartisan group of 29 U.S. states is suing Meta, seeking potentially tens or hundreds of billions of dollars in penalties and changes to how Meta does business.

Four lead states — California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey — accused Meta of designing Facebook and Instagram to hook young users, fueling anxiety, depression and even suicide, and misleading consumers about the platforms' safety. All 29 states accused Meta of violating federal law by improperly collecting and using children's personal data.

Experts have called the trial in the Oakland, California, federal court, which began with opening statements on Tuesday, the biggest legal test yet of social media's effects on young users.

Meta and other social media companies including Snap, TikTok parent ByteDance and YouTube parent Alphabet face thousands of lawsuits by states, municipalities, school districts and individuals over whether their products harm young users.

Megan O'Neill, a deputy attorney general for California, told the eight-person jury that Meta's business model was to "hook the users, hold them for as long as they can, harvest their data, and then hide the truth from the public."

"It worked especially well for kids," O'Neill added. "Meta needed kids, and it needed to reassure the people who cared about those kids that the kids are safe."

Meta's lawyer Paul Schmidt said there was "no dispute" that some social media users face struggles, but that research showed no clear link between adolescents' social media use and a lack of well-being.

He also said Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's co-founder and CEO, shared the company's desire to improve its services, and not make them dangerous.

"They don't believe they're going to do well if people don't like their service," Schmidt said.

JUDGE COULD ORDER CHANGES TO FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM

Jurors are expected to issue an advisory verdict, but U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will determine Meta's liability.

If she finds Meta liable, Rogers could impose civil penalties and order changes to Facebook and Instagram.

Meta has said penalties could be as high as $1.4 trillion, close to the Menlo Park, California-based company's market value.

Attorneys general said at a hearing last week the amount could be closer to $200 billion, or about three years of after-tax profit for Meta.

California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey also want Meta to overhaul Facebook and Instagram, including by eliminating likes and the infinite scroll that encourages views of new posts, setting time limits for younger users, and enforcing restrictions to keep children under 13 offline.

After opening arguments concluded, former Meta safety engineer Arturo Bejar began testifying as the states' first witness.

Bejar has long said Meta knew its child safety tools did not work, and has testified against the company in four trials.

Meta sought to block his testimony, allegedly for deleting Signal messages with former employees, but Rogers rejected what she considered a long-shot bid to eliminate a key witness.

Bejar told jurors that "move fast and break things" was a mantra at Meta, which took a "don't ask, don't tell" approach to monitoring whether children under 13 were online.

"Many products were shipped into the world," such as Reels short-form videos, "and safety was not a consideration in how it was initially deployed," Bejar said.

Zuckerberg and Instagram chief Adam Mosseri are also expected to testify. The trial is scheduled to last six weeks.

Meta shares traded lower most of Tuesday and closed down 4.4% at $543.67.

CRITICS PROTEST OUTSIDE

O'Neill said the states were not trying to put Meta out of business, saying social media "has some benefits for some people."

But she said Meta exploited children by researching how their brains work and react to online stimuli, and tracking their interactions on its apps.

She said an internal email sent to Mosseri said "teen time spent" was the goal, and said Meta employees viewed Instagram as a "drug" and themselves as "pushers."

"Meta found the younger a kid is when they start using the app, the better," O'Neill said.

Schmidt acknowledged that employees might use "loose" language in private, but said Meta's products were not addictive, and that jurors would hear what the employee who called Instagram a drug did to make it safer.

Some critics of Meta spoke outside the courthouse as the trial began.

Among them was Mary Rodee, who said her 15-year-old son Riley Basford died by suicide in 2021 after being victimized by a predator on Facebook.

"They call it spontaneous suicide," she said. "I call it what it was, the predictable outcome of a system that protects corporations instead of children."

The lawsuit began in 2023, two years after whistleblower Frances Haugen told a U.S. Senate committee that Meta knew its products were unsafe for children and knew how to make them safe, but did nothing in order to pursue higher profits. 

In March, a Los Angeles jury ordered Meta and Google to pay $6 million to a 20-year-old woman who said she became addicted to Instagram and YouTube as a child.

Earlier this month, a New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay $567 million to address teenagers' mental health after that state's attorney general called its platforms a public nuisance.

Tennessee's attorney general is also suing Meta, raising similar claims about Instagram. That case is on trial in Nashville.

(Reporting by Diana Novak Jones in Chicago and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, Nia Williams and Matthew Lewis)