Meta faces a federal trial as 29 states allege the company hid research on teen addiction. Separate reports show the firm courted parent influencers to promote safety tools.
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A federal trial opened Tuesday in Oakland, California, with lawyers for 29 U.S. states accusing Meta of covering up internal research that showed teenagers were becoming addicted to Instagram and other company platforms. The case is expected to run six to eight weeks.
Megan O'Neill, a deputy attorney general from California, told jurors they would see documents and hear witness testimony about how the company allegedly tried to hide what it knew. One internal document, O'Neill said, read "the young ones are the best ones." Another stated "Teens are hooked despite how it makes them feel. Instagram is addictive."
"Meta didn't do its share," lawyers for the states said in opening arguments. "Time and again, profits won."
Meta's legal team pushed back, arguing the documents were cherry-picked and presented out of context. A company lawyer said Meta is "acting in a meaningful way to remove" younger users from its platforms.
The trial arrives alongside a separate controversy over Meta's outreach to parent influencers. The Tech Transparency Project, a digital advocacy group, reported that five months before Australia banned teens from social media, Meta invited a group of Australian parent influencers to an "Instagram Safety Camp." The company gave them personalized scout badges and food, then briefed them on the effectiveness of Instagram's parental supervision tools.
"What we worry about is pushing teens into places that are less safe," Meta's head of child safety, Ravi Sinha, told the group. "We think our approach strikes the right balance." The influencers later repeated those talking points to their millions of followers.
Tech Transparency Project reviewed Meta's global practices and found the company has used this playbook wherever it has faced scrutiny. Meta admitted it has held more than 40 events since 2024 to promote teen safety tools, and that it works with social media influencers because "they are local voices trusted by parents in their communities."
"Their platform helps us reach families at scale in locations where we can't attend every school event or parent meetup," Meta said in a statement. "All paid partnerships are clearly disclosed and comply with relevant advertising standards in each market."
The states' lawsuit alleges Meta "refuses to abandon its use of known harmful features" and that its focus is on maximizing profit. The company denies the claims. The trial continues in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
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