{"id":5609,"date":"2026-08-20T05:09:59","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T05:09:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=5609"},"modified":"2026-08-20T05:09:59","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T05:09:59","slug":"harvest-their-data-and-hide-the-truth-from-the-public-four-states-seek-billions-from-meta-over-child-safety-practices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=5609","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Harvest their data and hide the truth from the public\u2019: Four states seek billions from Meta over child safety practices"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A\u00a0pivotal trial\u00a0for the parent company of Instagram and Facebook kicked off in a California federal court Tuesday, with four states seeking billions of dollars in damages as well as fundamental changes to how Meta runs its platforms.<\/p>\n

Read more 78-year-old ex-Fauci adviser pleads guilty to concealing COVID-19 origin research records using private email<\/a><\/p>\n

A jury will decide whether the states\u2019 attorneys general have made their case that the tech giant designed its apps to \u201chook the users, hold them for as long as they can, harvest their data and hide the truth from the public,\u201d as Megan O\u2019Neill, a deputy attorney general for the California Department of Justice, put it in her opening statement.<\/p>\n

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California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey were among the 29 states that\u00a0sued the tech giant\u00a0in 2023 over child safety and privacy \u2014 the other 25 will go to trial later. The company also\u00a0faces lawsuits\u00a0in state courts, including one underway in Tennessee.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit accuses Meta of contributing to the youth mental health crisis by knowingly and deliberately designing features that\u00a0addict children\u00a0to its platforms and hides these harms from the public. It also argues that Meta routinely collects data on children under 13 without their parents\u2019 consent, in violation of federal law.<\/p>\n

The company has defended its safety record and said it has a strong case.<\/p>\n

States argue Meta exploited research on child development<\/h4>\n

O\u2019Neill laid out the states\u2019 case for the eight jurors during opening statements in federal court in Oakland, California.<\/p>\n

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\u201cYou\u2019re going to hear that Meta knew a lot about kids\u2019 brains,\u201d O\u2019Neill said. This includes how they are constantly seeking rewards, how they are sensitive to social feedback and \u201chow they are still developing their ability to control impulses the way adults do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meta, she said, researched these vulnerabilities and talked about how it could change Instagram to respond to them.<\/p>\n

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\u201c \u2018The young ones are the best ones\u2019 is a title of a Meta study we are going to show you,\u201d she said, telling jurors that for Meta, \u201ckids are the product.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Meta, O\u2019Neill said, also knew that kids under 13 were using its products even though they were banned from it, and \u201cfailed to take the simplest most obvious steps to keep them off.\u201d For instance, she said, when Meta found that someone on Facebook was under 13, it would disable the person\u2019s Facebook account but not their connected account on Instagram.<\/p>\n

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The states called as their first witness former Meta executive\u00a0Arturo B\u00e9jar, who worked as an engineering director at Facebook from 2009 to 2015, attracting wide attention for his work to combat cyberbullying. He returned from 2019 to 2021 as a contractor to work on safety issues.<\/p>\n

B\u00e9jar said that, contrary to Meta\u2019s statements, the company\u2019s research on safety issues was not being used to improve products.<\/p>\n

For example, regarding eating disorder content, Meta\u2019s engineers \u201chad very good ideas on how to make it better\u201d so that users, especially young ones, would not be exposed to it.<\/p>\n

Read more A woman inspired by Luigi Mangione to try bombing Scott Bessent gets hit with 6 years in prison<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cBut once it was reviewed, it got whittled down to a little pebble that didn\u2019t make a difference,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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Meta attorney highlights company work on safety<\/h4>\n

Meta lawyer Paul Schmidt laid out his case beginning with what is not disputed in the trial \u2014 that even though kids under 13 are not supposed to be on its apps, some lie about their ages; that some teens struggle to manage their time; and that some people post \u201cnegative content\u201d on Facebook and Instagram.<\/p>\n

But he said he will focus on the work Meta does to make its platforms safer and share information with the public.<\/p>\n

\u201cMuch of this lawsuit is about the government attorneys and their witnesses saying in trying to improve, we\u2019d do it a little differently,\u201d Schmidt said. \u201cIn talking about how to improve, we disagree with how you talk about it. It\u2019s meaningful, and the evidence will be meaningful, these efforts Meta has taken to improve.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland is overseeing the proceedings, which are expected to last six weeks with testimony from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other executives and former employees. Gonzalez Rogers, appointed to the bench by President Barack Obama in 2011, has overseen a bevy of complex, high-profile cases involving Big Tech. These include\u00a0Elon Musk\u2019s lawsuit against OpenAI\u00a0and its founders as well as\u00a0Epic Games\u2019 lawsuit against Apple\u00a0over its app store.<\/p>\n

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If Meta loses the trial, the court would have wide discretion over the size of any financial penalty. Meta has said if it loses, the case could leave it liable for damages amounting to $1.4 trillion, but legal experts say anything close to that amount would be unlikely.<\/p>\n

Meta faces thousands of lawsuits, angry parents<\/h4>\n

The trial is the latest in an\u00a0avalanche of lawsuits\u00a0against Meta Platforms and other social media companies including Google\u2019s YouTube, TikTok and Snap, over arguments that their platforms harm young people, illegally collect their data and are deliberately designed to addict them.<\/p>\n

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As the trial began, child safety advocates and parents who trace their children\u2019s deaths to social media harms gathered outside of the courthouse Tuesday. Many parents held photos of their late children as they spoke to reporters outside, at times speaking through tears.<\/p>\n

Several parents held a banner with the names and ages of children who died from social media-related harms. It was several feet long.<\/p>\n

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Mary Rodee, whose son Riley Basford died by suicide at age 15 after being sextorted on Facebook Messenger, was among the parents and said she had helped write the names. They have had to add 39 new ones to the banner since March, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just a banner,\u201d Rodee said. \u201cEvery name that I wrote on there is a promise that these children will never be forgotten and that their stories will force accountability where silence once reigned.\u201d ___<\/p>\n

Read more Amazon isn\u2019t giving up on Jeff Bezos\u2019 drone deliveries dream\u2014and after 13 years of turbulence, the momentum is finally shifting<\/a><\/p>\n

Huamani reported from Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The suit looks to make fundamental changes to how Meta runs its social media platforms to better serve child privacy and safety.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meta"],"yoast_head":"\n\u2018Harvest their data and hide the truth from the public\u2019: Four states seek billions from Meta over child safety practices - Cross Country Moving Team<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=5609\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u2018Harvest their data and hide the truth from the public\u2019: Four states seek billions from Meta over child safety practices - 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