Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti's lawsuit accuses Meta Platforms of violating consumer protection laws by designing Instagram to drive teenagers to compulsive use.
The state alleges Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg ignored internal research warning of Instagram's harmful impacts on teens and declined to fund safety measures.
Meta defends its platform by citing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, claiming it is not liable for third-party user content.
Meta Knew Instagram Was Hurting Teens, Says Tennessee Lawsuit
The case is one of several trials in the coming weeks examining claims that the company's social media platforms were deliberately engineered to be addictive
Meta Knew Instagram Was Hurting Teens, Says Tennessee Lawsuit
Summary
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Meta Platforms goes on trial in Tennessee on Monday over state allegations that Instagram's design contributed to a youth mental-health crisis, according to Reuters.
The case is one of several trials in the coming weeks examining claims that the company's social media platforms were deliberately engineered to be addictive.
Tennessee accuses Meta of violating the state's consumer protection law by knowingly building a product that drives teenagers toward compulsive use, while misleading the public about its safety.
What the Lawsuit Alleges
The suit, filed by Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti's office, claims Meta withheld extensive internal research showing Instagram could harm teens and kept offering features it knew were risky without warning users, according to the report.
The state alleges that founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was repeatedly warned by some Meta employees about research pointing to negative effects on teens, but declined to fund efforts to address the harms and instead made misleading public statements about how much harmful content existed on the platforms, Reuters reported.
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Skrmetti is seeking financial penalties as well as a court order requiring Instagram to change aspects of the platform that the state considers harmful to teen mental health. Per the report, the case centres on features including autoplay, Reels videos, notifications, and designs that cause content to disappear after a set period.
Meta's Defence
A Meta spokesperson said that the company already has built-in controls to protect the hundreds of thousands of Tennessee teens who use social media daily, adding that Meta has spent a decade building age-appropriate defaults for teens along with tools for parents to set boundaries for their families, as reported by Reuters.
The company has argued that the state's harm claims actually stem from content posted by Instagram's own users, and that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shields it from liability for third-party content, according to the report.
How the Trial Will Proceed
Jury selection begins Monday in Nashville for the first phase of the trial. Jurors will first decide whether Meta violated Tennessee law; if they find it did, the case moves to a second phase in which the judge will determine monetary penalties and potential changes to Instagram. Tennessee's consumer protection law allows fines of up to $1,000 per violation, per the report.
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The trial is expected to run seven weeks and will overlap with at least two other cases against Meta underway in California courts, as the company faces thousands of lawsuits in both state and federal court over similar allegations.
Nearly every US state has filed claims against Meta over its platforms' alleged impact on children, according to the report. A separate trial covering claims from 29 states, alleging Meta violated federal law on children's data collection, along with additional state-law claims from California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey, is scheduled to begin August 18 in federal court in California.