Meta faces landmark US trial over child safety as survivor parents speak out
Parents of children harmed on Instagram and Facebook speak ahead of a pivotal US trial against Meta over addictive design and child data collection.
Opening statements are set to begin Tuesday in a California federal court in a landmark trial against Meta Platforms, with attorneys general from four states seeking billions in damages over alleged harms to children on Facebook and Instagram.
Outside the courthouse in Oakland, parents of children who died or suffered severe harm after using Meta's platforms gathered with signs bearing names and ages, urging the public to hold the company accountable.
Lennon Torres of the HEAT Initiative said the trial would finally expose what Meta executives allegedly knew about their products' effects on young users. "The courtroom doors are open and it is time that the public see what the executives at Meta have known all along," Torres said. "That their products are designed to addict and harm children."
Mary Rodee, whose son died by suicide at nearly 16 after what she described as a five-hour online encounter with an adult posing as a young woman, rejected official characterisations of the death. "They call it spontaneous suicide. I call it what it was," Rodee said. "The predictable outcome of a system that protects corporations instead of children."
Julianna Arnold described her daughter Coco's experience with Instagram, which began at age 12 in 2017 — four years before internal Meta research on the platform's harms to teenage girls became public. "The scrolling became depression, then anxiety she could not escape," Arnold said.
The lawsuit, filed by 29 states in 2023, accuses Meta of knowingly designing addictive features that contribute to a youth mental health crisis. It also alleges the company collects data on children under 13 without parental consent, in violation of federal law.
Attorneys general from California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey are seeking penalties that could theoretically total $1.4 trillion, along with operational changes to Facebook and Instagram. The remaining 25 states that joined the original suit will proceed to trial separately. Meta also faces related lawsuits in state courts.