In an Oakland courtroom, a six-week trial has opened that asks one of the defining questions of the digital age: when a corporation knows its product harms children and continues anyway, where does the law draw the line? Twenty-nine American states have brought Meta before a jury, armed with the company's own internal research, alleging that Facebook and Instagram were deliberately engineered to capture young minds for profit. Meta disputes both the science of addiction and the scale of the harm, but the trial will force a reckoning with what it means to build platforms that billions of childr
Meta faces trial over allegations it deliberately hooked children on social media
Millions of children exposed to platforms allegedly designed to maximize engagement despite known negative impacts on teen mental health and well-being.
Hook the users; hold them; harvest their data; hide the truth.
Mark
So Meta is saying social media addiction isn't real. But the states have Meta's own documents saying teens have an "addict's narrative." How does that argument survive?
Mimi
It survives because addiction has a specific legal and scientific meaning. Meta's saying: yes, people struggle with use, yes, we've built tools to help—but that's not the same as a diagnosable addiction. The states have to prove not just that the platforms are engaging, but that Meta deliberately designed them to be addictive in a way that violates privacy law.
Mark
The internal research sounds damning though. "Features designed to increase time spent are inherently at odds with well-being." That's Meta saying it knows the harm.
Mimi
It is damning, if you're the jury. But Meta's attorney is saying: knowing something causes harm and deliberately designing something to cause harm are different things. Every product has trade-offs. The question is whether Meta crossed a line—whether it targeted children specifically, knowing the risk, and lied about it.
Mark
Did it though? Target children specifically?
Mimi
That's what the trial will determine. The states say yes—Meta found millions of young kids on Instagram and did nothing. Meta says it was only 100,000, and that privacy laws actually prevented it from doing age verification properly. It's a numbers game, but also a legal one.
Mark
What about the gap between what Meta said publicly and what it found internally? That seems like the real story.
Mimi
It is. That's O'Neill's whole case. Meta told parents and regulators the platforms were safe. Internally, researchers were documenting that engagement features hurt teen mental health. If you can prove that gap was deliberate—that Meta knew and hid it—that's fraud. That's what the jury has to decide.
Le Pouls
- Twenty-nine states have opened a six-week trial in Oakland alleging Meta knowingly designed its platforms to addict children while publicly insisting they were safe.
- California's lead attorney presented Meta's own internal research as the prosecution's sharpest weapon — documents showing company scientists concluded teens described their use in 'an addict's narrative.'
- Meta's defense counters that the data is being selectively read, that no scientific consensus on social media addiction exists, and that privacy laws ironically blocked the very age-verification tools that could have kept children off the platform.
- The two sides are separated not just by legal strategy but by a foundational dispute: whether the gap between what Meta said publicly and what it knew privately constitutes a violation of law.
- If the states prevail, Meta could face billions in damages and be compelled to strip its platforms of core engagement features — infinite scroll and like counts — that its own researchers flagged as harmful to teen well-being.
In an Oakland courtroom, a six-week trial has opened that asks one of the defining questions of the digital age: when a corporation knows its product harms children and continues anyway, where does the law draw the line? Twenty-nine American states have brought Meta before a jury, armed with the company's own internal research, alleging that Facebook and Instagram were deliberately engineered to capture young minds for profit. Meta disputes both the science of addiction and the scale of the harm, but the trial will force a reckoning with what it means to build platforms that billions of children inhabit daily.
The trial opened on a Tuesday in Oakland with a disagreement that cuts to the heart of how modern technology intersects with childhood. Meta's position was stark: social media addiction does not exist. The position of twenty-nine US states was equally stark: Meta spent years engineering its platforms to trap children, and its own documents prove it.
California's lead attorney, Megan O'Neill, walked the jury through internal Meta research that described teens using the platform in terms that mirrored addiction, and that explicitly noted product features designed to increase time spent were at odds with user well-being. Her argument was structural: Meta's business model hooked users, held them, harvested their data, and hid the truth. When decisions had to be made, she told the jury, profits consistently won over safety — even as the company told parents and regulators otherwise.
Meta's lead attorney, Paul Schmidt, pushed back on the framing. The same internal study cited by the states, he noted, found that more teens said Instagram made them feel better than worse, and that a significant portion reported no effect at all. He argued Meta had built tools to help users manage their time, that executives had publicly denied addictive design, and that the science of social media addiction remains unsettled. On the question of underage users, Meta disputed the states' claim of millions, putting the number at just over 100,000 — and argued that the privacy laws at the center of the case had themselves prevented effective age verification.
What the jury must ultimately weigh is whether internal awareness of harm, paired with public reassurance, crosses a legal threshold. The stakes extend well beyond damages: a ruling against Meta could force the company to redesign its platforms at a fundamental level, removing the very features — infinite scroll, like counts — that its own researchers identified as engines of compulsive use. The outcome will shape not just Meta's future, but the terms on which the world's most powerful digital platforms are permitted to operate.
The trial began on a Tuesday in Oakland, California, with a fundamental disagreement about what happens when a child picks up a phone. Meta argued that social media addiction does not exist. Twenty-nine US states, including California and New York, argued that Meta spent years deliberately engineering their platforms to trap children—and that internal documents prove it.
The case will consume the next six weeks. Attorneys from multiple states will present evidence drawn from millions of pages of Meta's own files: internal research, employee emails, chat logs that reached Mark Zuckerberg himself. Meta's legal team will defend the company's practices and challenge the premise of the lawsuit. A jury in Oakland will decide whether Meta violated federal and state privacy laws, and if so, whether the company owes billions in damages and must fundamentally redesign Instagram and Facebook.
Megan O'Neill, California's lead attorney, opened by walking the jury through what Meta's own researchers had discovered about their platforms. One internal study stated plainly: "Teens have an addict's narrative about use." Another found that "product features designed to increase time spent are inherently at odds with well-being and take away from people's ability to focus on activity that adds value to their lives." Meta knew this, O'Neill argued, and did nothing. Instead, the company targeted young people as users, publicly assuring parents and regulators that its platforms were safe for children while its internal teams documented the harm.
O'Neill described Meta's business model in four steps: hook the users, hold them as long as possible, harvest their data, hide the truth from the public. She told the jury that throughout the trial, a pattern would emerge—a gap between what Meta said in press releases and what its researchers found in their labs. "Meta said it put safety over profits," O'Neill said, "but hid the reality that, time and again, when it came to make a decision, profits won."
Meta's lead attorney, Paul Schmidt, began his defense by reframing the evidence. Yes, one Meta document showed that one in five teens said Instagram made them feel worse. But Schmidt pointed out that the same document also found 41 percent of teens said it made them feel better, and another 41 percent said it had no effect. The picture was more complicated than the states suggested. Schmidt also challenged the core claim: that Meta had intentionally hooked children, or that its platforms were designed to be addictive. He argued that Meta had actually built tools to help people manage their use, and that the company's executives had publicly stated the platforms were not designed to be addictive. There is no scientific consensus that social media addiction exists, he added.
On the question of underage users, Meta disputed the states' figures. California's attorney had claimed Meta found "millions" of children aged 11 and 12 on Instagram and did little to stop them. Meta said the number was just over 100,000. Schmidt also raised a legal paradox: the very privacy laws Meta was accused of violating had prevented the company from collecting and storing the data it would need to verify users' ages and keep children off the platform.
The trial will test whether internal awareness of harm, combined with public reassurance, constitutes a violation of law. The states are seeking billions in damages and demanding changes to how Meta's platforms work—specifically, the removal of infinite scroll and like counts, features that Meta's own research suggested were designed to maximize engagement. What unfolds over the next six weeks will determine not just Meta's financial liability, but whether regulators can force the company to fundamentally alter the products that have made it one of the world's most powerful corporations.
Citations marquantes
Meta said it put safety over profits, but hid the reality that, time and again, when it came to make a decision, profits won.— Megan O'Neill, California's lead attorney
Product features designed to increase time spent are inherently at odds with well-being and take away from people's ability to focus on activity that adds value to their lives.— Meta's own internal research, cited in trial
Envie de l'histoire complète ?
Lire l'original sur BBC News ↗
Technology