A major US trial could force Meta to redesign some of Instagram and Facebook’s most familiar features, as 30 states accuse the company of putting growth ahead of the safety of children and teenagers.
Meta is heading into court facing a case that could reach far beyond a financial penalty.
Thirty US states are dragging Meta into a federal court in California this week. They are not just asking for an apology. They want upwards of a trillion dollars, and they want to rip the engine out of the apps.
The states are demanding an end to infinite scroll. They want autoplay killed. They want beauty filters removed and a hard stop on teenagers making multiple accounts.
But the biggest target is the “like” button.
During a recent court testimony, a young woman named Kaley explained how the system broke her. She was only nine when she started creating dozens of fake Instagram and YouTube accounts. She used them to “like” her own posts, chasing a quick hit of validation. By the time she was ten, she was diagnosed with severe depression.
Meta’s own internal documents, millions of pages handed over to lawyers, back this up. The company’s researchers found that like counts drive social comparison. It makes teenagers feel lonely and terrible about their bodies.
The judge in this new trial, Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, has a reputation for being sharp and direct. She is looking at a blueprint from a recent case in New Mexico.
In that trial, a judge actually declared Meta a “public nuisance.” He compared the social media giant to a factory polluting the air, fined them nearly a billion dollars, and ordered them to hide like counts for kids in his state.
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Meta says it strongly disagrees with all of this. A spokesperson insisted the evidence will show the company is committed to supporting young people.
But the states argue Meta simply chose to exploit kids to grow a $1.5 trillion business.
If the 30 states win, the apps will look completely different by next year. The scrolling will stop. The numbers will vanish. The question is whether a social network built on constant attention can actually survive without it.
