Meta is now sitting across the courtroom from nearly 30 US states in what may be the most consequential tech liability trial in years. A bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general accuses the company of deliberately engineering Facebook and Instagram to hook young users, even when its own internal research flagged serious mental health risks.
Opening statements began around August 18 in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. The states are seeking damages that exceed $200 billion, a figure roughly equal to Meta’s entire 2025 revenue of approximately $201 billion.
The case: hook, hold, harvest, hide
The lawsuit was originally filed on October 24, 2023, by a coalition of 32 attorneys general. Four states are leading the charge at trial: California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey, representing a broader group of 29 states.
At the heart of the complaint is a four-word framework the states use to describe Meta’s alleged strategy: “hook, hold, harvest, hide.” The accusation is that Meta designed its platforms to maximize engagement among children and teenagers through features like infinite scroll, algorithmic content recommendations, and push notifications, then obscured what it knew about the consequences.
