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Erin Popolo holds a picture of daughter Emily Murilla, who died at age 17, during a protest against social media platforms outside the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse on Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2026, in Oakland, Calif. (AP Photo\/Noah Berger) <\/p>\n
OAKLAND, Calif. \u2014 Opening statements started Tuesday in a pivotal trial for Meta Platforms in 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 $1.4 trillion plus changes to how the company operates Facebook and Instagram. Twenty-nine states sued the tech giant in 2023 over child safety and privacy \u2014 the other 25 will go to trial later. The company also faces lawsuits in 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 addict children to its platforms. 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
\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
\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
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Shannon Heacock holds a photo of son Elijah Heacock, who died at age 16, during a protest against social media platforms outside the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse on Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2026, in Oakland, Calif. (AP Photo\/Noah Berger) <\/p>\n
U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland is overseeing the proceedings, which are expected to last six weeks with testimony from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other executives and former employees. Gonzalez Rogers, appointed to the bench by President Barack Obama in 2011, has overseen a bevy of complex, high-profile cases involving Big Tech. These include Elon Musk\u2019s lawsuit against OpenAI and its founders as well as Epic Games\u2019 lawsuit against Apple over 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 avalanche of lawsuits against 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
__<\/p>\n
AP Technology Writer Kaitlyn Huamani contributed to this story from Los Angeles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Erin Popolo holds a picture of daughter Emily Murilla, who died at age 17, during a protest against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":436518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":["post-436517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}