The potential sanction has ‘no analog in history,’ Meta said.
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Meta is facing penalties of up to a massive $1.4 trillion from four US states that sued the company over the addictive designs of Facebook and Instagram, Reuters reported. Those states — California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey — also accused the company of misleading the public about the safety of those apps. The figure, not previously disclosed, is close to Meta’s $1.5 trillion market capitalization.
At a court hearing last month, the states said they calculated the penalties by estimating the number of young users affected by Meta’s platforms and multiplying that by fines set by state law. Meta revealed the figure in response to a request from the states’ attorneys general on how penalties should be calculated, but said that the amount was unjustified. “A sanction of that size has no analog in the history of consumer protection enforcement,” Meta’s lawyers wrote in the court filing.
Mark Zuckerberg’s company is facing additional lawsuits from 29 other states not part of the $1.4 trillion suits. Most of those allege that the company violated the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by collecting data from kids without the required parental consent. US district judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will address those claims, plus the four state lawsuits, at a trial in August. Another 14 states have brought claims based on local laws that will be heard at a separate trial in February 2027.
Meta has previously denied the allegations on the basis that “social media addiction” is not an established psychiatric condition. The company’s Instagram head Adam Mosseri previously compared it to being “addicted” to a Netflix show. In response, the American Psychiatric Association said that “social media addiction is not currently listed as a diagnosis in the DSM-5-TR [diagnostic manual] — but that does not mean it doesn’t exist.”
Juries have found merit to states’ claims, with one recently awarding New Mexico $375 million after finding the Meta had mislead consumers in the state. Meta and other social networks also recently paid $27 million to settle a Kentucky school district lawsuit over similar claims.
