Attorneys general from four states are seeking approximately $1.4 trillion in penalties from Meta over allegations that Facebook and Instagram were designed to encourage addictive use among young people and that the company misled the public about the platforms’ safety.
The social media giant disclosed the figure in a court filing on July 6, a week after a federal judge rejected its bid to dispose of the claims before trial. The case is scheduled to go before a jury on Aug. 18 in Oakland, California.
The amount, which approaches Meta’s market value of roughly $1.5 trillion, represents the company’s estimate of the potential penalties proposed by California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey if the states prevail at trial.
In Monday’s filing, Meta’s attorneys pushed back on the states’ methodology that led to the figure. They contended that the proposed monetary remedies are not tied to specific proven violations, are unsupported by evidence, and in some cases seek multiple recoveries for the same alleged conduct.
More broadly, they argued that simply showing such an enormous number to jurors could unfairly suggest that the states have a credible claim of wrongdoing.
“A sanction of that size has no analog in the history of consumer protection enforcement,” Meta said in its filing.
“It would reinforce the view that, because Meta is a large company, it should be made to pay more,” it added.
The four states presented the court with six charts outlining potential civil penalties and disgorgement. The charts themselves remain sealed.
In a public filing, however, the attorneys general explained that some calculations are based on estimates of the number of young users affected by Meta’s alleged conduct, multiplied by per-violation penalties available under state law. Other calculations use measures such as the amount of time that teenagers spend on the platforms.
The states have also said they may rely on only some of the charts or reduce their penalty claims as the trial proceeds.
The Epoch Times reached out to the attorneys general’s offices for comments.
The upcoming trial involves two sets of claims against Meta.
First, a total of 29 states are accusing Meta of violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, by collecting personal information from children under 13 without proper parental consent.
The second set of claims involves just four of the states—California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey—which accuse Meta of violating consumer protection laws. The states allege that the company made deceptive statements likely to mislead consumers about the safety of Facebook and Instagram and engaged in unfair business practices related to the design of its platforms.
Meta maintains that it complied with COPPA and has denied the states’ consumer protection claims. The company has argued, among other things, that “social media addiction” is not an established psychiatric condition and that its past statements denying the platforms’ addictiveness therefore could not be false.
U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the Northern District of California rejected that argument as grounds for ending the case before trial.
In a decision this past week, Rogers said there were material factual disputes over whether Meta’s platforms are addictive, whether the company falsely denied designing them in ways that encourage compulsive use, and whether Facebook and Instagram were at least partially directed toward children.
“To the extent plaintiffs’ evidence shows that the platforms are in fact designed to do just that, a jury could reasonably find the statements were untrue to a reasonable person,” Rogers wrote.
The court did side with Meta on some issues. Among other findings, Rogers determined that the company’s decision to suspend accounts suspected of belonging to users under 13 does not, by itself, establish that Meta knew those users were underage.
