Another of Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta trials saw numerous victims’ families attend court on the opening day.
The social media platform, led by Zuckerberg, has been embroiled in several lawsuits over the online safety of its apps, with the latest case beginning on Tuesday.
Speaking to the press, victims’ families outlined their desired outcome, including their hope that a positive verdict will help hold Meta accountable.
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On Tuesday, opening statements began in a major trial involving four states and Meta, with the proceedings drawing support from families of victims.
Among those present were Amy Neville, whose 14-year-old son, Alexander, died from fentanyl poisoning after allegedly being deceived by a drug dealer operating on Snapchat, and John DeMay, whose 17-year-old son, Jordan, died by suicide after being targeted in a sextortion scheme on Instagram.
As part of the parents’ emotional protest outside the courtroom, they unfurled a banner bearing the names of people who had died following social media-related harms. The names included children as young as 10 and young adults in their early 20s, all written in black ink. Nearly 600 names were listed across the banners, with parents saying the figure represented only a small portion of those they have lost.
3Although Meta has been embroiled in prior legal battles over children’s online safety, parents and other stakeholders view this trial as particularly significant.
“Profits do not erase the responsibility of Big Tech and no company — no matter how wealthy, no matter how influential, no matter how untouchable it feels it is — should get to stand above the truth, the law and our children,” said Lori Scott, one of the victims’ parents.
“Behind us, justice is going to be served,” also noted Lennon Torres, who works with the organization Heat Initiative. “The courtroom doors are open, and it is time that the public see what the executives at Meta have known all along: that their products are designed to addict and to harm children.”
3California is one of the four states involved in the case, seeking billions of dollars in damages and asking the court to order sweeping changes at Meta.
As part of the opening statement for the state, California Department of Justice Deputy Attorney General Megan O’Neill claimed that she intends to prove that Meta “hook[s] users, hold[s] them for as long as they can, harvest[s] their data and hide[s] the truth from the public.”
She further informed the jury that they would hear a lot about how the social media platform had conducted extensive research on children’s brains, including its view of them as “the product.”
She also noted that the platform “failed to take the simplest, most obvious steps” to keep children under 13, who were not meant to be using its products.
During the hearing, the states called on former Meta executive Arturo Béjar, who had two separate stints at the company.
Béjar, whose work largely focused on safety issues, claimed that the platform failed to use much of the research it had conducted on the matter to improve its products for end users.
In one instance, he claimed that engineers at the social media platform had “very good ideas” about how to prevent young people from accessing eating disorder content. However, management ultimately scaled back many of the measures proposed by those ideas.
“But once it was reviewed, it got whittled down to a little pebble that didn’t make a difference,” he said.
3A decision on the matter will likely take weeks, but the outcome could be unfavorable for Meta, given that the social media platform has already lost two pivotal cases this year.
One was a child safety trial in New Mexico, where Meta was ordered to pay $375 million for failing to protect its young users from sexually explicit content, trafficking and other online dangers. That amount subsequently rose to $942 million in August, with the additional $567 million payout ordered to establish a dedicated state fund for youth mental health. Meta intends to appeal both cases.
