The same company that collaborates with government censors to silence dissenting Americans deliberately designed its platforms to addict children, harvested their data, and hid the damage — according to internal emails and whistleblower testimony now on display in a landmark trial that threatens Meta's entire business model.
Twenty-nine states are suing Meta for designing Facebook and Instagram to hook young users, misleading the public about safety, and collecting data on children under 13 without parental consent. Four states — California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey — are proceeding now in Oakland; the rest go later. Damages could reach $200 billion, equivalent to Meta's 2025 annual revenue. The states also want Meta forced to redesign its products, which would permanently alter how the platforms operate.
California's lawyer Megan O'Neill boiled Meta's business down to four words: hook, hold, harvest, hide. Hook users in, hold them as long as possible, harvest their data, hide the truth from the public. Professor Mary Graw of Catholic University's Columbus School of Law, who is tracking the trial, called it an effective tagline that captures the plaintiffs' three core claims.
The evidence is devastating because it comes from Meta's own people. Internal emails showed "teen time spent" was the stated goal. Employees compared Instagram to a drug. The states' case rests on those internal documents and whistleblowers — not outside speculation. As Graw put it: "They are their own internal documents."
Former Meta safety engineer Arturo Béjar, who worked there in two stints between 2009 and 2021, testified that CEO Mark Zuckerberg fostered a culture where growth and engagement took priority over child safety. Béjar described a "don't ask, don't tell" approach to children under 13 using the platforms. Former researcher Elena Davis testified that Meta studied ways to make its products less habit-forming — which raises the obvious question of why those findings didn't change the product.
The court has already found Meta violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act by failing to meet its notice and parental-consent requirements. Remaining issues of liability go to the advisory jury, with Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers making the final call.
Meta denies everything. Spokesperson Liza Crenshaw accused the states of chasing "an outlandish payout." Attorney Paul Schmidt conceded people can struggle with social media but said Meta built tools to address it and has disabled over a million accounts belonging to users under 13.
That defense rings hollow given Meta's track record. The company lost two earlier trials in March — ordered to pay nearly $1 billion to New Mexico for allowing child sexual exploitation on its platforms, and over $4 million to a young woman it deliberately hooked.
The trial is expected to last six to eight weeks. Zuckerberg and Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri are expected to testify.
The same platform that built an apparatus to suppress speech it deems "harmful" spent years engineering actual harm to children — and calling it engagement. The question now is whether a court can force a company that treats citizens as crops to change the way it farms them.
