Infinite scroll. Photo filters. The like button. California’s deputy attorney general walked jurors through each one Tuesday, arguing Meta built every feature to be addictive on purpose — and knew it, and hid it. Meta’s own defence: teens already get a one-hour timer reminding them to close the app.
This article discusses child mental health and social media addiction at a legal and policy level.
California Deputy Attorney General Megan O’Neill delivered the states’ opening statement Tuesday in the federal trial TF reported when it began, laying out the specific evidence four states plan to put in front of the jury over the coming weeks. As reported in Opening Arguments Begin in the $1.4 Trillion Meta Addiction Trial, the case pits California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey against Meta in Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers‘s Oakland courtroom. Tuesday’s arguments filled in what the states intend to prove: that Meta engineered Instagram and Facebook‘s core features specifically to hook minors, knew the harm it caused, and misled the public about it for years.
What’s Happening & Why It Matters
The Features Named in Court
O’Neill’s argument centred on specific product decisions, not vague harm. The states allege Meta designed its flagship products to be addictive to minors through algorithms that “encourage compulsive use,” combined with features like infinite scroll, photo filters, and the like button. That’s a considerably more concrete claim than “social media is bad for kids” — it names the exact mechanisms plaintiffs argue Meta built, knowing how they’d affect a developing brain.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta named the stakes in plain language outside the courtroom: “Any parent, teacher, or guardian knows the detrimental impact of the products.” The coalition behind the four states arguing includes another 25 states that have sued Meta in federal court, with their own trials expected to follow.
The COPPA Claim
The lawsuit isn’t just about design. The states accuse Meta of violating the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act by gathering personal data from users under 13 without parental consent — a specific statutory violation running parallel to the addiction claim. It gives the states two distinct paths to liability: one built on product design and consumer protection law, another built on a federal privacy statute with its own clear compliance requirements Meta either met or didn’t.
The original complaint, filed in 2023, alleges violations of consumer protection laws, false and misleading public statements, and COPPA violations. Three years of discovery are behind Tuesday’s opening statement.
Meta’s Defence: The Safety Features
Meta’s attorneys present their own opening arguments next. Still, the company’s public statement, emailed to NPR, previewed the defence: the states’ claims are unsubstantiated, and Meta stands by its record of building protections for teens, including enhanced privacy settings and a one-hour timer on Instagram reminding them to close the app. That’s the same defence TF documented in the earlier coverage of the trial — Meta pointing to its safety investments as evidence it took the risk seriously, rather than evidence it knew and built the addictive mechanics anyway.
The company was handed a significant loss on identical issues. As TF reported in Court to Meta: Pay $567M for Children’s Mental Health, a New Mexico jury found Meta liable for $375 million in civil penalties, with a judge comparing its platforms to a polluting factory. That verdict is in the background of every argument being made in Oakland.
An Argument That’s Been Made in Court Before
This isn’t the first time a jury has heard Meta compared to an industry built on engineered compulsion. In an earlier bellwether trial, attorney Mark Lanier told a Los Angeles jury that Meta and Google “borrowed heavily” from casinos and tobacco companies, developing features that maximise youth engagement and make it difficult for minors to disengage. He argued platforms exploited a specific psychological vulnerability: “For a teenager, social validation is survival.” That case ended in a verdict against Meta and Google.
O’Neill’s opening statement in Oakland echoes the same theory, applied at a larger scale — four states, a $1.4 trillion demand, and a jury that will spend weeks hearing internal Meta documents the states say prove the company knew what it built.
TF Summary: What’s Next
Meta’s attorneys will deliver their opening statement next, laying out the company’s formal defence in detail. The trial is expected to run four to six weeks, per TF’s earlier coverage. Internal Meta documents and communications are expected to feature in the states’ case, following the same pattern that shaped the New Mexico verdict.
MY FORECAST: Expect Meta’s opening statement to lean on its safety feature timeline, arguing each addition — the one-hour timer, enhanced teen privacy settings — shows a company responding to emerging research, not one that knew and ignored the harm from the start. Whether that argument holds depends on what the internal documents show once they’re read into the record. New Mexico’s Attorney General said the most damning evidence in that case came from inside Meta itself — documents and communications the company couldn’t run from. If Oakland’s trial produces comparable internal material, expect the case to follow New Mexico’s trajectory rather than end in Meta’s favour.
If you or someone you know needs support, please get in touch with the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988, or the Samaritans at 116 123 in the UK.
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