US States Demand Sweeping Instagram Changes as Meta Privacy Trial Begins

OAKLAND, Calif. — State prosecutors laid into Meta Platforms on Tuesday as a landmark federal trial opened in Oakland, accusing the tech giant of intentionally engineering Instagram and Facebook to addict children while hiding internal research that documented the damage to young minds.

Representing a coalition of 29 state attorneys general, government lawyers told an eight-member jury that Meta prioritized screen time and advertising revenue over child safety, exploiting developing brains to lock in a new generation of users.

“You’re going to hear that Meta knew a lot about kids’ brains,” Megan O’Neill, a deputy attorney general for California, told the court in her opening statement. “They knew. Time and again, profits won.”

The trial before U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers is expected to last up to eight weeks and will feature testimony from Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram head Adam Mosseri.

While 29 states joined the underlying federal lawsuit filed in late 2023, attorneys general from California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey are leading this initial trial, seeking billions of dollars in financial penalties and permanent structural changes to how Meta operates its core platforms.

States allege Meta knowingly developed addictive features — including algorithmic recommendation feeds, auto-playing video reels, push notifications and infinite scroll — that trigger dopamine loops in young users. Prosecutors claim these mechanics contributed directly to rising rates of youth anxiety, depression and eating disorders.

Internal company records presented to the jury included a Meta document titled “The young ones are the best ones,” as well as internal strategy communications acknowledging that teenagers felt “hooked despite how it makes them feel.”