Overview
- Opening statements began Tuesday, Aug. 18, in a federal trial in Oakland with California, Colorado, New Jersey and Kentucky leading before an eight-person advisory jury and U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers presiding.
- The states say Meta deliberately built features such as infinite scroll, autoplay, visible likes and push notifications to maximize youth engagement, misled the public on safety, and illegally collected children’s data under COPPA.
- Plaintiffs seek structural remedies that include age limits, removal of infinite scroll and likes for minors, time limits, and deletion of data and models trained on under‑13 information plus large civil penalties estimated by states near $200 billion.
- Meta denies intentional wrongdoing, says it invested in safety tools and argues research does not prove social media use causes reduced adolescent well‑being, while warning penalties could reach as high as $1.4 trillion under the plaintiffs’ theoretical calculations.
- Early testimony by former Meta engineer Arturo Bejar said some safety features were 'designed to fail,' a claim Judge Gonzalez Rogers allowed after Meta tried to block his testimony, and the trial is treated as a bellwether for roughly 2,400 related federal cases and many state actions.