Meta on Trial: 29 US States will end social media's power to addict children and knowingly damage their mental health

Twenty nine states have joined together to take Meta to federal court. Not two states, not a handful of activist attorneys general, but 29 governments, representing well over half the population of the United States, standing in front of a jury in Oakland, California, to argue that one company built products designed to damage children, and knew it was doing so.

This is the scale that matters. When a company faces one lawsuit, it can be dismissed as an outlier grievance. When 29 states move together, backed by three years of investigation, internal documents and testimony from Meta's own engineers, it becomes something closer to a verdict already forming in public before the jury has spoken. California Deputy Attorney General Megan O'Neill opened the trial by telling the jury exactly what she believes Meta's business model does to a child: hook them, hold them for as long as possible, harvest their data, then hide the truth when the company speaks to the public.

The states are seeking $1.4 trillion in damages, a figure close to Meta's entire stock market value. Whatever the jury decides, the case itself has already forced a question that governments spent a decade avoiding: how much damage to a generation of children is an acceptable cost of an engagement driven business model.