WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Meta Platforms Inc. (META), the parent company of popular social media platforms Facebook and Instagram, will face several U.S. state governments in a federal court in California starting Wednesday.
Jury selection will begin on August 12, and opening arguments are expected on August 18. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram head Adam Mosseri are expected to testify before the court.
The trial in Oakland is expected to last about seven weeks. Colorado, Kentucky, California and New Jersey argue that Meta created features that keep young people using its apps for longer and did not properly warn people about safety risks. Another group of 29 states also claims Meta illegally collected and used children's personal data.
'Meta knows its platforms are harming children and teens but continues to keep kids addicted, as we've alleged in our lawsuit,' New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport stated. 'Our kids are not data points to be monetized.'
The states and child-safety advocates argue that features such as endless scrolling, videos that play automatically, personalized recommendations, notifications and 'likes' can encourage children to spend too much time on social media. They say this could contribute to problems such as anxiety, depression, eating disorders, self-harm and suicidal thoughts. Additionally, the states are also asking the judge to force Meta to make changes, such as introducing stronger age restrictions and removing infinite scrolling.
However, Meta strongly denies the accusations. The company argues that it has worked for years to support young people and believes the evidence will prove this.
'We've listened to parents, worked with experts and law enforcement, ?and conducted in-depth research to understand the issues that matter most,' the spokesperson stated, Reuters reports.
The lawsuit was filed in 2023, after a large investigation into how Facebook and Instagram affect young users. The investigation followed testimony from former Meta employee Frances Haugen in 2021. She told the U.S. Senate that Meta knew some of its products could harm young people and knew ways to make them safer, but chose not to make those changes because it wanted to increase profits, Reuters notes.
Notably, this could be a very important case for Meta because the company could face huge financial penalties worth trillions and may be forced to make major changes to Facebook and Instagram. Other companies, including Google and TikTok owner ByteDance, are also facing similar lawsuits.
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