States Seek $200 Billion From Meta Over Child Social Media Addiction Claims
New York Times · LC · trust 63/100
California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey are taking the social media giant to trial in the first bellwether federal case over child harm.
Listen · 7:00 min Share full article 0 During the trial, to be held in the U.S. District Court of Oakland, Calif., four states are expected to argue that Meta violated federal child privacy and state consumer protection laws. Credit... Jason Henry for The New York Times By Cecilia Kang and Eli Tan
Cecilia Kang reported from Washington and Eli Tan from San Francisco.
Meta on Tuesday will defend itself in court again over claims it addicted young people to social media, this time in the first bellwether federal trial, brought by states seeking roughly $200 billion in damages.
California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey have accused the social media giant, which owns Instagram and Facebook, of harming children with technology designed to be addictive like cigarettes. Meta fueled a national youth mental health crisis and deceived users by promoting its apps as safe, the states plan to argue in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in Oakland.
The suit charges the company with violating federal child privacy laws and state consumer protection laws.
“Meta designed a dangerous product for young users, knew it to be dangerous and then lied to children, families and the community about how dangerous it was,” California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, said in a statement last week.
Meta plans to argue that it put in safeguards to protect young users and that it was truthful to consumers.
The lawsuit is among thousands of personal injury and consumer protection lawsuits filed by states, school districts and individuals against Meta, YouTube, TikTok and Snap, which owns Snapchat. The cases claim that social media sites have harmed children with addictive products, drawing inspiration in part from a legal playbook used against Big Tobacco in the 1990s.
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