Meta hooked children on Facebook and Instagram, court hears

Lawyers for Meta have been defending the company this year against several major lawsuits.

A court has heard claims Meta intentionally hooked a generation of children on Facebook and Instagram, as the biggest legal challenge the social media platform has faced began on Tuesday.

A jury in Oakland, California will spend the next six weeks wading through claims by top attorneys from several US states, and lawyers for the social media company, that at turns rebutted the other as the trial opened.

A lawyer for California claimed Meta found "millions" of 11 and 12-year-olds were on Instagram and "it did little to keep them off".

Meta's representative said just over 100,000 such users were found, and also argued that social media addiction does not exist.

After the state lawyer said Meta knew its platforms hurt teen mental health, Meta's side said it was being ignored how many more teens had good experiences

The trial stems from a lawsuit filed in 2023 by 29 US states, including California and New York, in which they claim numerous violations of federal and state privacy laws for children.

Not only are the states seeking billions of dollars from Meta, they are demanding it make changes to Instagram and Facebook , including ending "like" counts and infinite scroll.

The trial started off on Tuesday with a battle of words and facts.

Paul Schmidt, a lead attorney for Meta in the trial, directly addressed an internal research report that Megan O'Neill, a lead attorney for California, made part of the states' opening arguments.

The Meta document O'Neill showed the jury found that "1 in 5 teens says Instagram makes them feel worse".

"What else does the document say?" Schmidt went on. "That 41% of teens said it made them feel better and another 41% said it had no effect."

Schmidt also worked to poke holes in the states' argument that Meta had not only failed to stop users under the age of 13 from using its platforms, but that it intentionally "hooked" teens and children as users of Facebook and Instagram, or that they were designed to be addictive.

As for Meta being able to verify the age of every user on its platform, Schmidt argued that the very privacy laws Meta was being accused of violating in the case prevent it from saving and using the data it would need to effectively track underage users.