Why is Meta on trial over child safety?
Four states opened a federal case in Oakland seeking billions and product changes, saying Instagram and Facebook were built to hook kids.
Meta is back in a federal courtroom over a charge parents have been making for years: that its apps were built to hold children's attention first and deal with the damage later.
Opening statements began Tuesday in Oakland, California, in a pivotal trial for Meta Platforms, parent of Instagram and Facebook. According to the Associated Press, attorneys general from California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey are seeking billions of dollars in damages and hard changes in how Meta runs its products. The four states are part of a 2023 suit by 29 states over child safety and privacy. The other 25 states are set for trial later. Meta also faces separate state-court cases, including one underway in Tennessee.
California Deputy Attorney General Megan O'Neill told jurors Meta designed its apps to "hook the users, hold them for as long as they can, harvest their data and hide the truth from the public." The lawsuit argues the company contributed to the youth mental-health crisis by knowingly building features that addict children, then concealing those harms. It also claims Meta routinely collected data on children under 13 without parental consent, which the states say violates federal law.
Outside the courthouse, families made the case personal. AP photographed parents holding banners with names of young people they say died after social-media harm. Olivia Konar held a banner that included her sister, Coco Konar, who died in 2022 at 17. Shannon Heacock held a photo of her son Elijah, who died at 16. Those names are not legal findings. They are the household stakes while lawyers argue design choices and liability inside.
Meta says it works to keep young people safe and believes it has a strong case. That defense will matter over a trial AP says should last six to eight weeks. Jurors will weigh what the apps rewarded, what the company knew, what parents were told, and whether ordinary family supervision was ever a fair match for systems built for endless attention.
Phones sit at dinner tables, in bedrooms, and on school bus rides. Parents already set screen limits and remove devices at night. A verdict cannot replace that work, but it can change the cost of ignoring it. If a jury finds engagement features were built to capture minors and hide the downside, safety tools stop looking like optional branding and start looking like basic responsibility.
Watch whether the jury accepts the addiction-and-concealment theory, whether remedies reach product design rather than only money damages, and whether later state trials force cleaner defaults for families.