Meta Platforms and attorneys general from U.S. states involved in a landmark social media case have discussed a possible mid-trial settlement, as the company faces allegations that Facebook and Instagram were deliberately designed to keep teenagers engaged and contribute to youth mental health problems.
Background of the Meta Case
In 2023, California Attorney General Rob Bonta and attorneys general from 32 other states filed a federal lawsuit against Meta in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
The complaint alleged that Meta had deliberately designed Facebook and Instagram with features intended to keep children and teenagers engaged for extended periods, despite allegedly knowing about potential risks to their mental and physical health.
The Mid-Trail in California
The federal trial, taking place in Oakland, California, is now in its second week and involves claims brought by attorneys general from 29 U.S. states. California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey are leading the litigation currently being heard in court.
Meta and the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside regular business hours.
Late Tuesday, several state attorneys general issued advisories notifying the media of plans for press conferences, including Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, whose office said it planned to announce "a major consumer protection settlement involving a leading technology company."
The claims are part of a broader wave of litigation brought by states, local governments, school districts and individuals alleging that Meta and other social media companies fueled a nationwide youth mental health crisis.
The trial also covered claims from 29 states that Meta violated the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act by collecting personal data from users it knew were children without parental consent and using the data to train machine learning and generative AI models.
While Meta has denied the allegations and accused the states' top officials of seeking unreasonable design changes and an "outlandish payout," it estimates that losing the ongoing trial could leave Meta facing penalties of up to $1.4 trillion, an amount close to its market capitalisation and unprecedented in legal history. By contrast, a settlement would likely cost the company far less.
Defence argument from Meta
During the first week of the trial, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri and several other current and former Meta employees testified about their roles in designing its social media platforms and studying how teenagers interact with tools intended to reduce problematic use.
Mosseri also said that few teenagers used a critical safety feature to limit their use before it was turned on by default. He also denied suggestions from the states that Instagram deliberately delayed by not making the "Take a Break" feature the default setting for teenagers until September 2024, nearly three years after its launch.
Mosseri acknowledged that the percentage of teens using the Take a Break feature was in the low single digits before Instagram made it the default.
Other testimony has also raised questions about how Meta handled internal safety research and whether it prioritised engagement goals over protections for young users.
Meta has pushed back against those allegations, arguing that its platforms include numerous safety measures and that the evidence does not establish that social media use itself causes adolescent harm.
Before Mosseri, Francesco Fogu, Instagram's director of product design, testified regarding a presentation on teenagers' safety that his team prepared in 2023 for the company's leadership.
He acknowledged the removal of data from a presentation slide indicating that teenage Instagram users encountered 1.5 times more bullying, suicide, hate, nudity, and violent content than adult users.
However, no settlement has been announced; the trial is expected to continue for several weeks. Its outcome could have broader implications for how social media companies design products for young users and how U.S. authorities enforce consumer-protection and children's privacy laws against technology platforms.
