Nearly three years after New York joined a sweeping legal challenge against Meta, the case has reached trial, putting allegations that Facebook and Instagram were deliberately designed to keep children hooked before a federal judge.
New York Attorney General Letitia James and a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general began presenting their case Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The trial, before U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, is expected to last six to eight weeks and could determine whether Meta must change features the states contend are harmful to young users.
The lawsuit dates to October 2023, when James joined attorneys general from 32 other states in suing Meta. Nine additional attorneys general filed related cases in their own jurisdictions at the time, bringing the total number taking legal action against the company to 42.
The case does not simply argue that social media can be harmful. The states allege Meta knowingly designed Facebook and Instagram around features intended to maximize the amount of time children and teenagers spend on the platforms, while publicly portraying those products as safe.
“Meta has built their business around addictive feeds and features that put children’s mental health at serious risk,” James said as the trial opened.
Meta has contested the allegations and repeatedly sought to prevent major portions of the case from reaching trial. A federal court rejected an effort to dismiss key claims in January 2025, and another attempt to obtain judgment without a trial failed in June. The district court and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently rejected Meta’s requests to delay the proceedings.
States target algorithms, alerts and infinite scroll
The original complaint focuses heavily on how Meta’s platforms are designed.
The states allege recommendation algorithms are structured to keep users engaged for longer periods and encourage compulsive use. They also point to social-comparison features such as “likes,” repeated notifications designed to draw users back to the platforms, visual filters and infinite-scroll formats that make it harder for users to disengage.
Those allegations are significant because the states are seeking to establish that the potential harm wasn’t merely an unintended side effect of popular social networks.
The coalition contends Meta understood that some of those features could affect younger users but continued deploying and marketing them. The lawsuit alleges the company also made misleading public statements about safety and published reports that understated negative experiences occurring on its platforms.
The states point in part to Meta’s own internal research, which they say showed links between platform use and problems including anxiety, depression, insomnia, educational disruption and other harms.
Those remain allegations being litigated at trial, not findings that Meta is legally responsible for those outcomes.
Children’s data is also part of the case
The lawsuit contains a separate privacy component involving children younger than 13.
The attorneys general allege Meta collected personal information from children under 13 without obtaining parental consent, in violation of the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.
According to the original complaint, Meta knew children younger than its stated minimum age were using its products but continued collecting and monetizing their information without securing the parental authorization required under federal law.
The coalition is asking the court to stop Meta from using practices it contends are deceptive or harmful, require compliance with laws protecting children and consumers, and impose monetary penalties and restitution.
Trial comes as New York expands protections
For New York, the trial is part of a broader state push to regulate how social media companies interact with children.
Since the lawsuit was filed, New York has moved ahead with the SAFE for Kids Act, which targets addictive social media feeds for minors. James’ office finalized rules related to that law in July.
The attorney general has also taken legal action against TikTok over similar claims involving children’s mental health and joined efforts opposing federal legislation that her office argued could weaken states’ ability to enact their own online protections.
That makes the Meta trial a potentially important test of a different approach to the same underlying policy question.
Rather than regulating future platform behavior through legislation alone, New York and the other states are attempting to establish that existing consumer-protection and children’s privacy laws can be used against social media design practices themselves.
The case could therefore have implications beyond whether Meta ultimately pays penalties. If the coalition succeeds in obtaining court-ordered changes, the outcome could affect how some of the most familiar features on Facebook and Instagram are presented to children and teenagers in New York and across much of the country.
For now, however, those changes remain what the states are asking the court to impose. After years of motions and preliminary litigation, the allegations themselves are finally being tested at trial.
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