The Trillion-Dollar Trial Against Meta Is Too Big to Succeed

Meta heads to federal court in Oakland, California, on Tuesday in a trial brought by four states alleging the company’s flagship platforms, Facebook and Instagram, were designed to be addictive to children. The potential financial penalties are shocking, totaling as much as $1.4 trillion in the worst case scenarios, according to Meta. The company is currently valued at about $1.5 trillion, making that kind of financial blow an existential threat. But experts think there’s no way Meta is paying that much, even if it loses. Attorneys General for California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey have brought the case that goes to trial Tuesday and is being overseen by District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. The states want Meta to redesign its platforms to eliminate design features perceived as having a connection to addiction, like infinite scroll. The states also want new time restrictions for kids under 18 on platforms like Instagram and the deletion of any AI systems trained on data from children. After decades of little to no regulation of social media in the U.S., American officials have recently tried to hold the Big