Four U.S. states seek $1.4 trillion in damages from Meta over children’s social media addiction, setting a record for consumer rights claims in the U.S
Meta recently disclosed in a court filing that four U.S. states, including California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey, have filed civil penalty claims totaling up to $1.4 trillion against the company for allegedly deliberately designing social software to make children addictive and concealing its harm. This figure is close to the company's current total market value of approximately $1.5 trillion, setting an unprecedented record for claims in the history of U.S. consumer protection enforcement. It is understood that this huge claim was formally raised by the attorneys general of the above-mentioned four states in documents submitted to the court on the calculation method of fines. Although the relevant specific documents are still sealed, the plaintiff revealed in a previous court hearing that the fine was calculated based on the estimated number of affected young users, that is, the total number of suspected violations, multiplied by the maximum individual fine stipulated in state laws. In response to this, a spokesperson for Meta Company firmly rejected it in an interview with the media, saying that the plaintiff's calculation method was "extremely absurd and has no factual or legal basis" and emphasized that the relevant claims are completely "attractive political demands that are divorced from reality." This judicial lawsuit focusing on youth mental health and privacy protection has now evolved into a large-scale collective rights protection action by US local governments against Silicon Valley technology giants. Statistics show that nearly 30 U.S. federal states have jointly filed a lawsuit against Meta in federal court, accusing it of illegally collecting children's data without obtaining valid parental consent and seriously violating the U.S. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). In addition, 14 other states have filed independent lawsuits against the company based on their own state laws, and the relevant cases are expected to be heard in court next year. In response to the intensive accusations from all parties, Meta argued that because "social media addiction" is not a diagnosed mental illness in the medical community, the plaintiffs cannot prove that they deliberately misled the public. At the same time, the company emphasized that its Facebook and Instagram marketing targets a broader public group, rather than specifically targeting children under the age of 13, and therefore does not violate relevant children's privacy protection laws. However, U.S. Federal District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers formally rejected Meta’s application to drop the lawsuit late last month and announced that the case will be formally heard in Oakland, California next month. Market analysts pointed out that currently not only Meta companies, including Many global mainstream social media platforms, including chat, YouTube and TikTok, are facing thousands of similar class-action lawsuits in the United States, accused of being unshirkable responsible for the mental health crisis among youth across the United States. Previously, New Mexico has made initial progress in related lawsuits. In March this year, a local jury found Meta guilty of misleading consumers and ordered it to pay $375 million in compensation. The state judge is still hearing the second part of the case. It is expected that Meta will face larger additional fines and court injunctions ordering to modify software algorithms in the future.