Designed to 'exploit' children: Meta faces a historic courtroom reckoning

As opening statements get underway in a landmark trial over claims that Meta Platforms misled the public about the safety of Instagram and Facebook for young users and violated child privacy laws, one of the biggest fights in the case has already been resolved: whether a bipartisan group of US states could present their claims together.

The states pushed for a single trial covering state consumer protection and federal privacy claims brought by 29 attorneys general, while Meta argued for a series of smaller trials grouping states that have similar laws.

The fight was about more than courtroom logistics. The states argued that the case centres on company-wide decisions affecting young users across the country and seeks nationwide changes to Meta's platforms, and that jurors should hear a single story about Meta's actions. Meta countered that jurors should evaluate states' claims separately because the underlying laws differ and warned that a combined proceeding could blur important distinctions among the claims.

Ultimately, US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers adopted a hybrid approach for the multi-week trial, allowing Colorado, California, Kentucky and New Jersey to try their state law claims together, while also including the federal law claims brought by all of the states. Although Rogers will decide the case, she appointed an advisory jury whose findings may inform her final ruling.

The trial's outcome could help guide how the remaining states' claims are resolved, reshape how Facebook and Instagram operate, and force Meta to pay billions of dollars in penalties.

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Meta has called the allegations unsubstantiated and said it stands by its work to protect teen users of its platforms.

Legal experts said in a case against a company as well-capitalised as Meta, a multistate coalition gives the states the ability to pool resources and share expertise, and it may improve their credibility with the jury and the judge. They said attorneys general have used the strategy repeatedly in cases against the tobacco and opioid industries to strengthen their bargaining power and to present evidence of conduct that allegedly affected consumers across the country.

"A jury will see all these states banding together to do this, and that presents kind of like a projection of unity," said Prentiss Cox, a former assistant state attorney general in Minnesota who is now a law professor at the University of Minnesota Law School. “Elected officials on different sides of a partisan world can agree that this is a problem that needs solving.”

The states' lawsuit, which was filed in 2023, stems from a multistate investigation into Instagram and Facebook's impact on young users.