Tech giant Meta is set to face a jury trial in a 30-state lawsuit alleging violations of children’s mental health and privacy. The case is scheduled to begin in federal court in California before Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers.
The lawsuit accuses Meta of violating federal and state child protection laws. The plaintiffs are seeking more than $1 trillion in damages and calling for major changes to Facebook and Instagram’s practices.
The states allege that Meta’s algorithms and platform design keep children and teens on the app for long periods of time and create addiction in them. For this reason, they have demanded changes such as turning off like counts, disabling infinite scroll and video autoplay, and removing filters that create unrealistic images.
In addition, there are demands to ban the ability for minors to open multiple accounts, to eliminate features like Instagram Stories that automatically delete after a certain period of time, and to make parental verification mandatory when using children’s accounts.
Meta has denied the allegations from the start. A spokesperson for the company said that Meta has a long history of working to protect and support young users and will defend its position in court.
Meanwhile, a New Mexico court has fined Meta $942 million in a child protection lawsuit and found the company’s activities to be harmful to the public interest.
Experts say that if Meta loses the 30-state lawsuit, it could lead to major changes in the policies and framework for using Facebook and Instagram in the United States. This could have long-term implications for children’s use and safety policies on social media.
