US States Seek Sweeping Changes To Meta Platforms

Meta has been hit with successive losses in court over how its platforms have targeted and harmed young users, but a jury trial set to begin on Tuesday may pose the biggest threat yet to its operations.

The trial stems from a lawsuit filed in 2023 by 29 US states, including California and New York, in which they claim numerous violations of federal and state privacy laws for children.

Not only are the states seeking billions of dollars from Meta, they are demanding it make changes to Instagram and Facebook, including ending “like” counts and infinite scroll.

Should Meta ultimately lose a case of this scale, it could force fundamental changes to the way young people experience social media.

One state attorney general described the case as “the largest consumer protection lawsuit in American history”.

“We’ll show a jury that Meta concealed what it knew about the harm its products cause young people because looking away was more profitable,” said Kentucky Attorney General (AG) Russell Coleman.

“AGs are in the perfect position to get this done. We did it with the Tobacco Settlement in the 1990s. We did it with the companies behind the opioid crisis. We’ll do it again with Meta.”

Kentucky and the other states suing Meta are asking for many more changes to the way Instagram and Facebook operate for young people, too.