Zuckerbeg’s Meta in $1.4 trillion addiction showdown: Why is the giant in court again?

The social media behemoth that controls Instagram and Facebook is accused of breaking child protection laws and harming underage users’ mental health Meta is heading to court on Tuesday to face accusations that it broke child safety laws and harmed underage users’ mental health.

A loss could bankrupt Mark Zuckerberg’s company and force permanent changes to Facebook and Instagram.

Read more EU targets Meta over ‘addictive’ Facebook and Instagram design Who’s suing Meta? Four US states – California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey – are suing Meta in a federal court in Oakland, California.

The four states are parties to a wider lawsuit involving a total of 29 states, filed in 2023.

The remaining 25 states are expected to have their trials at later dates.

Attorneys general in all 29 states have consolidated thousands of individual complaints – a practice known as multidistrict litigation – all alleging that Meta knowingly harmed its youngest and most vulnerable users.

What is Meta accused of? All four states argue that the social media giant deliberately engineered its platforms to keep children and teenagers scrolling for as long as possible, while knowingly allowing under-13s to use these platforms without parental consent.

“Meta has harnessed powerful and unprecedented technologies to entice, engage, and ultimately ensnare youth and teens.

Its motive is profit, and in seeking to maximize its financial gains,” the lawsuit states.

This week, Attorney General Phil Weiser joined @Morning_Joe to discuss the ongoing fight to protect our young people from harmful social media algorithms and practices. pic.twitter.com/yA7MzfxymE — Colorado Attorney General (@COAttnyGeneral) August 13, 2026 These addictive design features – including the infinite scroll feature and algorithms that encourage “compulsive use” – amount to unfair, fraudulent, or deceptive business practices in all four states, the plaintiffs allege.

Furthermore, the lawsuit alleges that Meta knows its products are harming users’ mental health, but “prioritizes engagement and profits to the detriment of young users’ well-being,” for example by recommending “content related to eating disorders” to young girls.

On top of these ‘addiction’ allegations, the four plaintiffs claim that Meta violated federal law, namely the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), by collecting personal information from under-13s without obtaining parental consent.

“Meta does not obtain – or even attempt to obtain – verifiable parental consent before collecting the personal information of children on Instagram and Facebook,” the suit states, claiming that the company falls back on its nominal ban on under-13s to skirt its COPPA obligations.