Key facts
- Meta is on trial in California federal court, facing allegations from 29 US states that its social media platforms are designed to addict children and harm their mental health.
- The lawsuit claims Meta deliberately designed features like infinite scrolling and algorithmic recommendations that prey on the cognitive vulnerabilities of young people.
- Meta defends its child safety efforts, stating it takes these issues seriously and has implemented various protections and time management tools.
- Critics argue Meta's safety features are often ineffective, introduced in response to public pressure, and that the company prioritizes revenue over child well-being.
- A report by former employee Arturo Béjar and advocacy groups found a significant percentage of Meta's teen safety features to be unavailable or not working as advertised.
Meta is facing a trial in a California federal court, accused by 29 US states of deliberately designing its social media platforms, Instagram and Facebook, to addict children and contribute to the youth mental health crisis. The company maintains it takes child safety seriously and has implemented numerous protections.
In opening statements, Meta's lawyer Paul Schmidt asserted that the company addresses children's mental health and social media content with seriousness. However, critics, including Marc Berkman of the Organization for Social Media Safety, argue that Meta's safety measures are often reactive, implemented due to public pressure rather than genuine concern, and that there's a 'lack of real institutional willingness to act.'
Meta highlights features such as comment filtering, warnings for potentially harmful content, restrictions on private chats with teens, and increased age verification checks. The company also points to its 'Teen Accounts,' launched in 2024, which offer aligned photo and video restrictions. Despite these efforts, a September 2025 report by former Meta employee Arturo Béjar and several online safety advocacy nonprofits claimed that many of Meta's marketed safety features for teens were either unavailable or not functioning as advertised, with 60% of evaluated features falling into this category. Meta has disputed these findings as 'misleading' and 'dangerously speculative.'
Academics and researchers, like Ashley Shea, a Ph.D. candidate at Cornell University, identify 'attention-capture deceptive designs' such as infinite scrolling and algorithmic recommendations as features that exploit the cognitive vulnerabilities of young people. Shea notes that while Meta has addressed issues like harassment and cyberbullying, there has been less effort to counteract the addictive impact of these design features.
Meta also promotes its time management tools, including parental supervision controls and in-app 'nudges,' as evidence of its commitment to user well-being. Critics, however, describe these tools as 'voluntary,' difficult to set up, and 'far too little too late.' Béjar testified that features like 'Take a Break' are designed to fail because users must activate them, and few do. Experts suggest that for-profit social media companies are incentivized to maximize user engagement, particularly among children, to drive revenue. The current legal challenges, focusing on the inherent design of the platforms as 'defective products,' represent a new front, with growing pressure on lawmakers potentially leading to broader industry changes.