Meta Platforms has settled claims from states accusing the company of designing Facebook and Instagram to addict young users, misleading the public about platform safety and unlawfully collecting children’s data, ending a major federal trial while thousands of related lawsuits remain unresolved.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
Meta Platforms has reached a settlement with states pursuing allegations that Facebook and Instagram harmed children through addictive design features, deceptive safety representations and the collection of personal information from underage users without proper parental consent.
The agreement was reached while a federal trial was underway in California involving claims from 29 states, bringing one of the most prominent legal tests of social media companies’ responsibility for alleged harms to young users to an end before a verdict.
Terms of the settlement were not disclosed in the information provided.
The trial had moved forward after a federal appeals court refused to stop the proceedings only days before jury selection began Aug. 12.
At issue were two major categories of allegations.
The attorneys general of California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey accused Meta of violating their respective consumer-protection laws by allegedly misleading users and the public about the safety of its platforms.
A broader group of 29 states also alleged that Meta violated the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, commonly known as COPPA, by knowingly collecting personal information from children without notifying their parents or obtaining parental consent.
The states further alleged that Meta used information collected from children to train machine-learning systems and generative artificial intelligence models.
Meta has denied wrongdoing throughout the litigation.
The company has maintained that it has invested heavily in protections for children and teenagers using its services and disputed allegations that Facebook and Instagram were intentionally designed to create addiction.
Meta also argued that it could not have deceived consumers about whether its platforms were addictive because “social media addiction” is not recognized as a psychiatric diagnosis.
The potential financial exposure in the case was enormous.
Before the trial began, Meta said in a court filing that California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey were pursuing penalties that could reach as much as $1.4 trillion.
The states had not publicly demanded that specific amount.
During a pretrial hearing, attorneys representing the states said the penalty figure they contemplated would instead be closer to $200 billion.
In addition to financial penalties, the states were seeking further monetary damages and a court order that would have required significant changes to Meta’s platforms.
Their requested relief also included preventing children from establishing accounts.
The settlement removes the immediate risk of a verdict in that federal case, but it does not resolve the much larger legal campaign confronting Meta and several other major technology companies over their treatment of young users.
Thousands of Youth Social Media Cases Still Pending
Meta, Snap Inc. and its Snapchat platform, Alphabet and YouTube, and ByteDance and TikTok continue to face thousands of lawsuits alleging that their platforms were knowingly built with features capable of encouraging compulsive use among children and teenagers.
Plaintiffs in those cases include state governments, local governments, school districts, individuals and families.
The lawsuits broadly contend that social media platforms contributed to a nationwide mental health crisis among young people.
Federal cases involving those allegations have been consolidated before U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California.
That litigation includes claims filed by individual users, school districts and state governments.
Thousands of additional cases remain pending in state courts.
In Los Angeles, a judge is overseeing thousands of lawsuits brought by individuals who allege that they or members of their families suffered harm because of social media platform design.
Court records also show that approximately 30 states have filed separate lawsuits against the companies in state courts.
Meta is simultaneously defending itself in another trial that has been underway in Nashville since July involving claims brought by the state.
The latest settlement follows a series of courtroom setbacks for Meta earlier this year.
In New Mexico, the company lost both phases of a major case involving allegations about the safety of its platforms.
A jury in March found that Meta had misled consumers about platform safety and ordered the company to pay $375 million.
The case produced another ruling on Aug. 6, when a judge found that Meta had created a public nuisance.
Meta was ordered to pay an additional $567 million and implement measures intended to improve safety protections for younger users.
Those two rulings resulted in combined monetary awards of $942 million against the company.
March also brought a plaintiff victory in the first trial involving an individual’s claims against Meta and Google over alleged social media harms.
A Los Angeles jury found Meta and Google liable in connection with depression and anxiety suffered by plaintiff Kaley G.M.
The companies were ordered to pay a combined $6 million in damages.
Meta and Google have said they will appeal those verdicts.
The four major social media companies have also previously chosen to settle rather than proceed with the first federal case that had been scheduled for trial.
That lawsuit was brought by Kentucky’s Breathitt County School District, which alleged that Meta, Snap, Alphabet and ByteDance were responsible for harms experienced by students.
Public records showed that the school district was set to receive a combined $27 million from the companies under those settlements.
The wave of cases has increasingly focused on whether social media companies can be held responsible for design choices that plaintiffs say encourage prolonged or compulsive use by children and teenagers.
The litigation also raises separate questions about children’s privacy, particularly whether companies knowingly collected information from underage users without satisfying federal parental-notification and consent requirements.
The California trial would have placed those issues before a federal jury in a case involving multiple state governments and potentially extraordinary financial penalties.
Instead, Meta’s agreement with the states ends that particular confrontation without a jury determination.
The settlement does not end the broader legal challenge facing the company.
Meta still must contend with thousands of federal and state cases, the ongoing Nashville trial and appeals arising from the New Mexico and Los Angeles verdicts, leaving unresolved the larger question of how much legal responsibility social media companies may ultimately bear for alleged harms to children and teenagers.
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