{"id":860155,"date":"2026-08-18T23:36:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T23:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/860155\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T23:36:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T23:36:13","slug":"meta-trial-platforms-faces-pivotal-court-case-over-claims-of-child-harm-and-addition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/860155\/","title":{"rendered":"Meta trial: Platforms faces pivotal court case over claims of child harm and addition"},"content":{"rendered":"

Opening statements kicked off on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST) in a\u00a0pivotal trial for Meta Platforms\u00a0in a California federal court, where states are seeking billions of dollars in damages for social media harms to children.<\/p>\n

Attorneys general from California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey are seeking a financial penalty that could, in theory, total as much as $US1.4 trillion ($2 trillion) plus changes to how the company operates Facebook and Instagram. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

California Attorney General Rob Bonta arrives at the courthouse on Tuesday.\u00a0AP Photo\/Noah Berger<\/p>\n

Twenty-nine states\u00a0sued the tech giant\u00a0in 2023 over child safety and privacy \u2014 the other 25 will go to trial later. The company also\u00a0faces lawsuits\u00a0in state courts.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit accuses the social media giant of contributing to the youth mental health crisis by knowingly and deliberately designing features that\u00a0addict children\u00a0to its platforms. <\/p>\n

It also argues that Meta routinely collects data on children under 13 without their parents\u2019 consent, in violation of federal law.<\/p>\n

Megan O\u2019Neill, a deputy attorney general for the California Department of Justice, laid out the states\u2019 case for jurors during opening statements in federal court in Oakland, California.<\/p>\n

\"People<\/p>\n

The lawsuit accuses the social media giant of contributing to the youth mental health crisis by knowingly and deliberately designing features that\u00a0addict children\u00a0to its platforms. \u00a0AP Photo\/Jeff Chiu<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re going to hear that Meta knew a lot about kids\u2019 brains,\u201d O\u2019Neill said. This includes how they are constantly seeking rewards, how they are sensitive to social feedback and \u201chow they are still developing their ability to control impulses the way adults do\u201d.<\/p>\n

Meta, she said, researched these vulnerabilities and talked about how it could change Instagram to respond to them.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018The young ones are the best ones\u2019 is a title of a Meta study we are going to show you,\u201d she said, telling jurors that for Meta, \u201ckids are the product\u201d.<\/p>\n

Meta has repeatedly said it believes it has a strong case.<\/p>\n

\"London,<\/p>\n

Meta – whose platforms include Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp – has repeatedly said it believes it has a strong case.\u00a0iStock<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are proud of our record in protecting teens on our platforms and the amount of effort that we\u2019ve put into developing protections over the years, even before these cases were ever filed, and continuing to the present day. We look forward to showing the judge and the jury those facts in court,\u201d the company said in a written statement.<\/p>\n

US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland will oversee the proceedings, which are expected to last six to eight weeks with testimony from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other executives and former employees. <\/p>\n

Gonzalez Rogers, appointed to the bench by President Barack Obama in 2011, has overseen a bevy of complex, high-profile cases involving Big Tech. <\/p>\n

\"Colorado<\/p>\n

Colorado Attorney General Philip Weiser arrives at the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse on Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2026, in Oakland, California\u00a0AP Photo\/Noah Berger<\/p>\n

These include\u00a0Elon Musk\u2019s lawsuit against OpenAI\u00a0and its founders as well as\u00a0Epic Games\u2019 lawsuit against Apple\u00a0over its app store.<\/p>\n

If Meta loses the trial, the court would have wide discretion over the size of any financial penalty, and legal experts say anything close to $1.4 trillion would be unlikely.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis case is not about any individual person or kid,\u201d O\u2019Neill said. Rather, she said, it\u2019s a law enforcement action designed to hold Meta responsible.<\/p>\n

The trial is the latest in an\u00a0avalanche of lawsuits\u00a0against Meta Platforms and other social media companies including Google\u2019s YouTube, TikTok and Snap, over arguments that their platforms harm young people, illegally collect their data and are deliberately designed to addict them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Opening statements kicked off on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST) in a\u00a0pivotal trial for Meta Platforms\u00a0in a California federal court,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":860156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99],"class_list":["post-860155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=860155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/860156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=860155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=860155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=860155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}