“Meta heads to court in a landmark trial about kids and social media addiction”, 17 August 2026

Meta will head into federal court on Tuesday to fend off accusations from a group of state attorneys general that it designed its social media platforms to hook children, lied to the public about the risks those platforms posed and gathered data on kids in violation of the law…

Four states — California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey — are seeking up to $1.4 trillion in penalties and product changes under consumer protection laws that they allege were broken by Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. They say Meta also violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by hoovering up data about children…

The suit is a bellwether in what's known as multidistrict litigation. It consolidates thousands of similar lawsuits to create consistency and avoid duplication of tasks like evidence gathering…

In a statement emailed to NPR, a spokesperson for Meta said that the states' claims are limited and unsubstantiated and that the financial demands are "vastly disproportionate."

"The AGs offer no proof anyone in their states was misled, claim benign features like having an additional Instagram account somehow harmed their residents, and attempt to penalize Meta for industry-wide challenges like age verification," the spokesperson wrote. "We stand by our record of creating strong protections for teens, and look forward to making our case in court."…