Opening arguments begin today in a federal trial that may be the most consequential lawsuit in tech history. Twenty-nine states — led by California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey — accuse Meta of deliberately engineering Instagram and Facebook to hook children, lying to parents about the risks, and collecting data on kids under 13 without consent. Meta faces up to $1.4 trillion in potential penalties, though states' lawyers have told the judge that $200 billion is more realistic. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is expected to testify before Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, with the trial expected to run six to eight weeks.

1. Meta's Own Research Showed It Was Harming Kids (State Attorneys General, Jonathan Haidt)

States say Meta knew — and hid it.

Meta's internal studies documented the harm it was causing. Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt at NYU Stern has compiled 35 internal Meta research reports gathered from whistleblowers and legal filings. One internal study found that Facebook users who stopped using the app for a week felt less depressed and anxious. Internal data showed that 13% of Instagram users aged 13 to 15 — roughly 5.7 million teens — receive unwanted sexual advances every week.

The company's documents are brutally direct. Documents entered into evidence in the March 2026 LA trial included a Meta internal note: "If we wanna win big with teens, we must bring them in as tweens." Meta calculated the lifetime value of a 13-year-old user at roughly $270 per teen, driven by higher long-term retention from younger users. The documents also included internal acknowledgment that "kids are easier to addict due to their developing brains."

Courts have already found Meta liable. In March 2026, a Los Angeles jury held Meta and YouTube responsible for depression and anxiety in a landmark first verdict, awarding $6 million in damages. A New Mexico judge then branded Meta a "public nuisance" and ordered it to pay $567 million into an abatement fund for children's mental health programs — on top of a prior $375 million jury verdict in the same case, bringing New Mexico's total to $942 million, the largest youth-harm penalty against a social media company before this federal trial. New Jersey AG Jennifer Davenport summed it up: "They're putting the profits … over the health of a generation of young people."

2. But Meta Says There's No Proof Its Platforms Caused This (Meta)

Meta argues the science doesn't support the lawsuit — and the penalties don't fit the claims.

No study has proven that social media causes teen mental health problems. Meta's defense is that teen mental health is "profoundly complex and cannot be linked to a single app." Meta insists critics are scapegoating it for multi-faceted emotional issues that children face. After the New Mexico ruling, Meta VP Andy Stone said: "We remain confident in our record of protecting teens online" and filed an appeal.

The penalties states are seeking are wildly disproportionate. Meta's lawyers have argued the $1.4 trillion figure — and even the more likely $200 billion — bears no reasonable relationship to any measurable harm. The company has consistently tried to block or narrow the case, including a last-ditch attempt to get the federal suit dismissed before trial began.

States structured their lawsuit to sidestep long-standing tech protections. States aren't suing Meta for what users posted — they're suing over how Meta designed its features (infinite scroll, push notifications, content recommendations). Suing over design rather than content deliberately avoids Section 230, which has historically shielded tech companies from liability for what users post. Snap and TikTok settled rather than argue this theory in court; Meta chose to fight.

3. Though Scientists Say Social Media May Not Be the Primary Cause (Candice Odgers, UC Irvine; Electronic Frontier Foundation)

The science underneath this trial is more contested than the states' case lets on.

Longitudinal studies don't find social media as a primary cause. UC Irvine developmental psychologist Candice Odgers published a major critique in Nature titled "The Great Rewiring: Is Social Media Really Behind an Epidemic of Teenage Mental Illness?" Her conclusion: "Social media use does not show up in our longitudinal studies as a major cause of mental health symptoms in teens. Almost everyone else who has studied this has found the same." The National Academies of Sciences conducted its own expert review and reached the same conclusion.

Large international studies show no consistent pattern. The Electronic Frontier Foundation's 2026 analysis found that meta-analyses across dozens of countries "failed to show a consistent, measurable association between the rollout of social media and a decline in global well-being." A study of 100,000 adolescents found a U-shaped relationship — moderate social media use was linked to the best well-being outcomes, while both no use and very high use were associated with poorer outcomes.

If the lawsuit focuses only on Meta, the real causes may go untouched. Odgers argued in a 2026 TED talk that the lawsuit strategy — hold the app accountable, restrict how teens use it — misdiagnoses what's actually driving teen distress. Broader stressors — pandemic disruption, economic anxiety, school safety — get ignored when policymakers narrow the debate to app design. Targeting Meta may produce a settlement and some product changes without improving teen mental health at all.

Where This Lands

States say Meta has been caught — the internal documents are damning, two courts have agreed, and the federal case raises the stakes to a scale that could force the company to redesign its core products. Meta says no study proves causation, the penalties are wildly disproportionate, and the legal theory is novel enough that an appellate court could undo everything. A third group of researchers says both sides are arguing past the harder question: the science linking social media to teen mental health crises is shakier than the trial assumes, and the real causes of adolescent distress may have nothing to do with the like button. The trial is expected to last into October, with Zuckerberg on the stand along the way.

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