Meta Faces $1.4 Trillion Reckoning In Latest Trial Over Social Media Addiction (engadget.com) 67
Meta is heading to trial in a case brought by dozens of states accusing it of deliberately designing addictive features, misleading users about safety, and illegally collecting data from children under 13. Meta says the states are seeking penalties as high as $1.4 trillion, though the judge has already called that figure "unreasonable." The case could, however, influence thousands of similar lawsuits against the company. Engadget reports: The trial kicks off Tuesday in federal court in Oakland, California, after Meta lost a last-ditch attempt to get the case dismissed last week. It could see testimony from top officials at Meta, including Mark Zuckerberg, and could result in record-breaking penalties for the company. The case stems from a 2023 lawsuit brought against Meta from dozens of states, which accused Meta of intentionally creating addictive features and violating consumer protection laws. The action came after a multi-state investigation into the company's safety practices that officials said revealed serious harms to children and teens.
During the trial, federal Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will hear claims from California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey that Meta violated state consumer protection laws by intentionally misleading the public about the safety of its apps. Those four states and 25 others are also suing Meta over alleged violations of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The states allege Meta broke the law because it knew Instagram and Facebook had users under the age of 13 and collected data about them without permission. [...] For Meta, the stakes are especially high because the company is currently facing thousands of other lawsuits that accuse it of harming users. Juries in Los Angeles and New Mexico have already ruled against Meta in high-profile trials that deal with similar issues. (Meta has said it will appeal in both cases.) Another loss could not only be a financial blow, it could give other lawsuits an easier path forward. And while Meta isn't exactly hurting for money, its legal costs are adding up. The company said it spent $2.4 billion on legal costs in the second quarter of 2026 alone.
The jury in the case has already been selected and opening arguments are set to begin Tuesday, August 18. The trial is expected to last about six weeks. Unlike in a standard jury trial, the eight-member jury will serve in an "advisory" role, as Law360 explains. The judge will have full power over the final verdict and penalties. Along the way, the trial could also see testimony from some of Meta's most visible executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram chief Adam Mosseri. Both men are likely to testify, according to Reuters. [...] Audio from the trial will be live streamed on the court's YouTube channel. A spokesperson for Meta issued the following statement: "The State AGs may call this a landmark case, but their limited claims are unsubstantiated and their financial demands are vastly disproportionate. The AGs offer no proof anyone in their states was misled, claim benign features like having an additional Instagram account somehow harmed their residents, and attempt to penalize Meta for industry-wide challenges like age verification," the spokesperson continued. "Rather than sticking to the facts or the law, the states have instead decided to chase an outlandish payout. We stand by our record of creating strong protections for teens, and look forward to making our case in court."
During the trial, federal Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will hear claims from California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey that Meta violated state consumer protection laws by intentionally misleading the public about the safety of its apps. Those four states and 25 others are also suing Meta over alleged violations of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The states allege Meta broke the law because it knew Instagram and Facebook had users under the age of 13 and collected data about them without permission. [...] For Meta, the stakes are especially high because the company is currently facing thousands of other lawsuits that accuse it of harming users. Juries in Los Angeles and New Mexico have already ruled against Meta in high-profile trials that deal with similar issues. (Meta has said it will appeal in both cases.) Another loss could not only be a financial blow, it could give other lawsuits an easier path forward. And while Meta isn't exactly hurting for money, its legal costs are adding up. The company said it spent $2.4 billion on legal costs in the second quarter of 2026 alone.
The jury in the case has already been selected and opening arguments are set to begin Tuesday, August 18. The trial is expected to last about six weeks. Unlike in a standard jury trial, the eight-member jury will serve in an "advisory" role, as Law360 explains. The judge will have full power over the final verdict and penalties. Along the way, the trial could also see testimony from some of Meta's most visible executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram chief Adam Mosseri. Both men are likely to testify, according to Reuters. [...] Audio from the trial will be live streamed on the court's YouTube channel. A spokesperson for Meta issued the following statement: "The State AGs may call this a landmark case, but their limited claims are unsubstantiated and their financial demands are vastly disproportionate. The AGs offer no proof anyone in their states was misled, claim benign features like having an additional Instagram account somehow harmed their residents, and attempt to penalize Meta for industry-wide challenges like age verification," the spokesperson continued. "Rather than sticking to the facts or the law, the states have instead decided to chase an outlandish payout. We stand by our record of creating strong protections for teens, and look forward to making our case in court."
Best outcome: End of Meta (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, the best outcome from my POV would be the bankrupting of Meta and the end of all of its products and services. Meta is a net negative for humanity.
Sadly, this is very unlikely to happen given the lobbying power of Meta and the reluctance of courts to impose a corporate death sentence.
Re: (Score:2)
Then what comes along to fill the void, after every potential upstart is now spooked that they can be sued out existence because parents can't manage to keep their spawn off of social media?
Re:Best outcome: End of Meta (Score:5, Insightful)
Then what comes along to fill the void, after every potential upstart is now spooked that they can be sued out existence because parents can't manage to keep their spawn off of social media?
The point is that we get back the same void that existed before.
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Re:Best outcome: End of Meta (Score:5, Insightful)
The point is that we get back the same void that existed before.
I don't think its possible to ever put the social media genie back in its bottle. But I am open to trying.
Re: Best outcome: End of Meta (Score:3)
It would help a lot if they had fear.
Of course all of that is a fantasy...
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It would help a lot if they had fear.
Fear used to be a powerful tool - used to be that a President doing something illegal would get them impeached, and they'd rather resign instead. How times have changed.
Perhaps the guillotine should be brought back for ' treason, bribery, or "other high crimes and misdemeanors" '.
Re: Best outcome: End of Meta (Score:5, Interesting)
Fear used to be a powerful tool - used to be that a President doing something illegal would get them impeached, and they'd rather resign instead. How times have changed.
You must live in a different US than I do.Only three presidents have ever been impeached and not a single one of them resigned and all were acquitted by the senate.
FDR would take up a book of illegal actions. From the Japanese internment, warrentless surveillance, Lend-Lease without congressional approval, etc. No resignation
Eisenhower was probably the last great president we had. However he did overthrow the government of Iran and put the Shah back in power at the behest of England. Operation Wetback violated a lot of folks 4th amendment rights and the CIA went wild while he as in office. No resignation
Truman seized control of the US steel mills via EO during the Korean war. He also didn't go to congress for approval to go into Korea. No resignation
Kennedy used the CIA to monitor journalists in project mockingbird. Then there was the warrantless FBI wiretap he ordered on on MLK. No resignation.
Besides being one of the biggest piece of shit people to be president in modern times, LBJ used the FBI and CIA to surveil and wiretap his political opponents and war protestors.No resignation.
Nixon did actually resign, though what he did would end up in the back of the D section of most newspapers today. While impeachment proceedings had started, he was never actually impeached. He was the only president to ever resign
Carter was incompetent as a president, however I don't know of anything illegal during his administration. I always admired him as a person though.
Reagan had the whole Iran-Contra thing. No resignation.
George H. W. Bush was likely involved in Iran-Contra. I wasn't a fan of his at the time he was president, but in retrospect he was a better president than I felt at the time he was in office. No resignation.
Clinton was actually impeached and, unlike Nixon, didn't resign. While I know of no one who ever met him that didn't say he was an affable person, he committed perjury. The Clinton's walked out of the White House with almost $200k in "gifts" when they left. It violated the law, but no charges were ever filed. They returned $30k of them and paid $86k for the remainder. No resignation.
I don't think I need to say much about things that transpired after 9-11 with regards to GWB. No resignation.
Obama's extrajudicial killing of Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan as well as al-Awlaki's son in a separate drone strike was pretty bad. Going into Libya without congressional approval with the intent to overthrow Gaddafi was a violation of the war powers act. The DOJ surveilling AP journalists violated the 1st amendment. There were no arrests from sending thousands of illegal weapons into Mexico but at least one american killed by those guns. No resignation.
Trump was impeached for withholding $400 million in aid to Ukraine and Jan. 6. No resignation. The SCOTUS and other federal courts slapped down several things he tried to do. No resignation.
As a senator Biden illegally removed classified documents and retained them. As VP he threatened to withhold $1 billion in aid to Ukraine unless the prosecutor investigating his son was fired. Multiple women accused him of assault over his career. His family business dealings are actually as, if not more blatant than Trump. His immigration polices would have gotten any president booted anytime prior to the last 20 years. We'd probably need half a dozen super computers to tally all of the rights violations that occurred in the name of covid during Biden's time as president. No resignation.
Trump 2.0, I'm not going to try to sort through what Trump has done at this point. The Judiciary branch of the government has ended much of it. Probably not enough for some . While folks complain about Trump attacking Iran, I didn't hear the same regarding Libya in 2011. The same law applies. Congress can't selectively apply laws. Regardless, there will be no resignation methinks.
I can go back to George Washington and up to modern presidents (obviously) and list illegal things they've all done. There was little fear of impeachment, ever. Hell, Andrew Jackson killed a man in a duel on the White House lawn a few years before becoming president.
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Super high quality comment. Washington was a genocidist. Jefferson kept a slave girl in a closet. Everything we didn't learn in school is what's most important for context.
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I don't think its possible to ever put the social media genie back in its bottle.
It's basically the raison d'etre for normies to own smartphones. Prior to the advent of social media, only business users and tech enthusiasts wanted to carry around the mutant offspring of a laptop and a cell phone.
But I am open to trying.
You'd need a regime that is even more authoritarian than China, since even they allow social media (albeit, only the censored and state-approved kinds).
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Other social media companies may want to limit the addictive functionalities (like the "infinite scroll") if they see Meta get hit very hard.
Maybe even hard enough to bankrupt it.
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But nothing Meta does is actually *social* media. It's *marketing* media. Faceplant, for example: I have to have an add-on for firefox, so I can see my feed in chronological order - they took that away a year or two ago as an option. And in the last couple weeks, I'm not getting notified when someone comments on one of my posts.
And on, and on.
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The point is that we get back the same void that existed before.
You're only getting that if you move to an Amish community. The likely outcome is age gates and maybe a cigarette pack style warning message.
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You're only getting that if you move to an Amish community. The likely outcome is age gates and maybe a cigarette pack style warning message.
The number of people who smoke has trended down since the 1960s. Smokers today are segregated to "smoking spaces" in public. If social media went the same way, I would consider this a massive win :-)
Re: Best outcome: End of Meta (Score:2)
Exactly. Calling that a void is like asking what will happen to all the poor opioid addicts if we get rid of fentanyl. The void where the addiction used to live is called real life- that is what will fill it.
Re: Best outcome: End of Meta (Score:2)
As in, before the dreaded Doomscroll?
Re:Best outcome: End of Meta (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing. That's the whole point. It's a void that does not need filling.
We managed to survive without social media before. We'll manage it again.
They said the same about indoor plumbing (Score:2)
Nothing. That's the whole point. It's a void that does not need filling.
We managed to survive without social media before. We'll manage it again.
Just because you don't like social media doesn't mean it doesn't provide value for others. Lamenting it is like lamenting AI, the web, TV, air-conditioning, electricity, indoor-plumbing, etc. Social media is a permanent part of our life. It is very valuable for many. It's how our local community organizations and schools communicate and raise funds. It's how many large families keep in touch. I don't use it any more. I only go on there to donate stuff I don't need and follow school announcements as w
Re: They said the same about indoor plumbing (Score:2)
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Social media's current surveillance-capitalism business model is destructive and corrosive. It's genuinely harmful to society and needs to be completely destroyed.
I'd be fine with social media that (1) is forbidden from using ads to obtain revenue; (2) only shows content from people or groups you explicitly follow, and only in strictly reverse-chronological order; (3) makes it clear when you've seen content before so you know you've seen the rest of the timeline, and (4) is only allowed to use subscriptio
Re:Best outcome: End of Meta (Score:5, Insightful)
Then what comes along to fill the void, after every potential upstart is now spooked that they can be sued out existence because parents can't manage to keep their spawn off of social media?
This has nothing to do with parents. Meta broke the law by violating privacy laws designed to protect children. It also knowingly created a harmful product for children, did nothing to prevent children from using that harmful product, and ignored the depression, anxiety, and suicides in children their product caused.
Yes, if Meta pays a high price, then future social media companies - and all other companies - have a big incentive to FOLLOW THE LAW.
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This has nothing to do with parents.
There's a lot of things that are marketed towards kids that aren't so great for them. Entire aisles filled with foods that consists mostly of sugars, for example. It might be something of an old fashioned way of thinking these days, but traditionally parents were assumed to be the safety net between the marketing and the children.
Re: Best outcome: End of Meta (Score:4, Insightful)
Traditional for who? Some nations make it illegal to advertise to children, which is frankly the only responsible tack to take given that they have not learned discernment yet.
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Traditional for who?
Traditional, as in earlier generations seemed to have less of a problem with telling their kids no. No, you can't stuff your face full of unhealthy food, no, you're too young for a motorcycle, and no, the TV in your bedroom isn't getting hooked up to receive HBO.
Re: Best outcome: End of Meta (Score:2)
Traditional generations had two traditional parents to do the parenting. My mother didn't have time or energy to make sure I wasn't overeating or whatever. But even non-single parents are harried these days.
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"The void" is what we used to call actual community.
Before social media, we had social humans.
Now all we're left with is media - a commercial property.
This is exactly how every invasive species works.
Infiltrate and supplant.
Embrace, extend, extinguish.
Etc.
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This is true. I used to be on social media, and then about two years ago, I deleted my accounts.
I lost touch with a few hundred "friends".
But I've kept in better touch with my actual friends then before. We text, we email, we meet for lunch or coffee or whatever, and we socialize. And nobody feels compelled to take pictures to prove it actually happened.
So yes. Friend count down by 90%. Friend interaction quality up by 300%.
Re: Best outcome: End of Meta (Score:2)
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Why are you saying that like it's a bad thing?
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because parents can't manage to keep their spawn off of social media?
That is not a trivial feat in the least. You don't have to give your kids smart phones, you don't have to have a PC at home. You can try to send your kid to a school that deemphasizes technology. And yet your kid will still end up with a screen addiction because it is that consuming. Kids don't have a chance. What today's kids face today is so far beyond what any of us grew up with that there really is no comparison.
My youngest siblings grew up on a heavy diet of Barney and Friends and it drove me
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Web forums, Usenet, and blogs, personal pages, web rings. You know, back when people went to more than 3 websites.
Re:Best outcome: End of Meta (Score:4, Informative)
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Worst outcome: Age verification / identity verification for everyone, parents just give children their ids because all their friends are on social media, same shit but with less anonymity.
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Worst outcome: Age verification / identity verification for everyone
Yup, if having underage users becomes a liability, they'll just boot off the underage users. Then this also becomes a problem for every other social media network expected to operate under the same legal framework, for fear of that if they don't, they'll also get sued.
I'm really looking forward to age verifying my 6 digit UID /. account, lol.
77,986 impacted by corporate death sentence. (Score:2)
Honestly, the best outcome from my POV would be the bankrupting of Meta and the end of all of its products and services. Meta is a net negative for humanity.
Sadly, this is very unlikely to happen given the lobbying power of Meta and the reluctance of courts to impose a corporate death sentence.
Why sadly? Meta employs 77,986 employees, according to Google. That's a fuckton of people impacted. Wouldn't it be better to have those resources applied responsibly? You can hate Zuckerberg and you apparently wish for his extinction, but I'd personally rather he just stop being an ass and be more careful with our data & his algorithms. His companies are a goldmine and don't require abuse to profitably thrive. I'd personally rather see him just stop abusing users and make a nice healthy profit whi
Re: 77,986 impacted by corporate death sentence. (Score:2)
Nothing is free (Score:2)
Some people consider scraping people's lives for personal gain to be abuse.
You can hold whatever opinions you want, it's a free country, but you are using a service that costs money to operate and is given to you for free. Either you're the customer or you're the product. Is Facebook abusive? Yes, but IMHO for different reasons. Is collecting data generally to sell you things abusive?...not if done transparently and ethically. Facebook could easily be run ethically. Many sites offer free services in exchange for ad viewing in ethical ways.
Re: Nothing is free (Score:2)
Think of the children! (Score:2)
They won't get the 99% that Zuck promised to donate to charity!
Actually my newest funny theory is that Zuck knows what he did and decided that he should try to settle for 1% of the loot while he still has a big bag of loot. What is the REAL value of those Facebook shares? (To be contrasted with another cancer company where the shares have around 10% of that much reality?)
Title correction: (Score:2)
"Privacy Rapist Meta[stasize] Faces $1.4 Trillion Reckoning In Latest Trial Over Social Media Addiction"
There FTFY.
Lol unreasonable (Score:5, Insightful)
"Meta says the states are seeking penalties as high as $1.4 trillion, though the judge has already called that figure "unreasonable."
Allowing Meta to continue to exist is unreasonable.
Pretty simple (Score:2)
They will just do the same thing Microsoft did (Score:1)
Then they will put some very very very minor controls in place that don't actually solve the problem and that'll be the end of that. And things will continue to be rotten and we will all wonder why even though we keep voting for absolutely rotten politicians even though we have perfectly good politicians who are boring as fuck but not corrupt.
But hey did you see the latest cool crazy thing Trump said?
B.J. Fogg and the behavioural convergence Model (Score:3)
“[Joseph] Chancellor [parliament.uk] is a quantitative researcher on the User Experience Research team at Facebook, whose work focusses on aspects of virtual reality. We are investigating Mr Chancellor's work with Dr Kogan/GSR through counsel. The remainder of this question was answered by Mr Schroepfer”
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"Something which does not enter your body cannot be addictive."
Yet men are addicted to sex quite often, yet nothing enters their body (unless they're gay.)
Moron.
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So nobody has a gambling addiction? They just fritter away all of their money, lose their houses and cars and possessions because they're fully in control?
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1.4T unreasonable? (Score:2)
How about that 1.6M against an old lady because her kid downloaded music online? Was that reasonable? Fuck no it was not.
So shut the fuck up, judge, and deal with it.
Where does one find help with rehab? (Score:2)
If Meta wants a nicer spot in hell they can at least help with the mess they have profited off of. Help train the nex
What about their kids (Score:1)
While we listen to the Bros telling the courts how their tools have no ill effects on kids, we should bear in mind the article from today's New York Times: "Silicon Valley Executives are Tech Fans. Just not for their own Kids." . This tells how Peter Thiel allows his kids "an hour and a half a week" of screen time, while Zuck suggests that allowing his kids on line may not have "positive benefits."