Key players
This lawyer for Meta argued the states' case misrepresents the company's platforms and accused the attorneys general of cherrypicking internal documents.
Who is Paul Schmidt?
This is the year the coalition lawsuit against Meta was originally brought by 29 state attorneys general.
What is 2023?
This federal law, meant to protect children's online data, Meta allegedly violated by collecting personal data from users under 13 without parental consent.
What is COPPA (Children Online Privacy Protection Act)?
This is the word Meta used to describe the states' allegations in its statement.
What is 'unsubstantiated'?
This state's attorney general is currently pursuing a separate, ongoing trial alleging Meta knowingly harmed young people's mental health.
What is Tennessee?
This deputy attorney general for the California Department of Justice delivered the opening statement outlining the states' claims.
Who is Megan O'Neill?
This is the number of states whose lawyers are actually arguing the case at this trial: California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey.
What is 4?
Along with 'likes' and notifications, the states claim recommendation algorithms and this endless-feed feature were intentionally designed to be addictive.
What is (an) infinitely scrolling feed?
This is the term Meta used to describe the proposed financial penalty of up to $1.4 trillion.
What is 'vastly disproportionate'?
In March, a jury in this state found Meta liable for violating consumer protection laws and failing to protect children from sexual predators, ordering $942 million in damages.
What is New Mexico?
This former Facebook engineering director turned whistleblower was the states' first witness — despite having worked on safety at Meta, he struggled to protect his own teen daughter on Instagram.
Who is Arturo Béjar?
The trial is expected to last at least this many weeks.
What is six (weeks)?
This phrase, the nickname of an internal Meta document cited in court, refers to the company's efforts to attract young users.
What is 'the young ones are the best ones'?
Besides the First Amendment, Meta claims protection under this federal law, which says platforms can't be held liable for content posted by users.
What is Section 230?
A teen from this state dropped his case against Meta in July, after reaching settlements with TikTok, YouTube and Snap.
What is Florida?
Since the eight-person jury only serves an advisory function, this district court judge will actually rule on the verdict and any damages.
Who is Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers?
This is the combined amount in damages the four states could collectively seek from Meta.
What is $1.4 trillion?
Quoting Meta's own culture, California AG Rob Bonta said this well-known Silicon Valley motto was the company's guiding philosophy.
What is 'move fast and break things'?
Along with parental controls and default privacy protections for teens, Meta points to these as a third safety measure for young users.
What are reminders to take breaks?
This nickname, evoking a past industry's reckoning with public health harms, is used to describe the current wave of litigation against Big Tech.
What is 'Big Tech's Big Tobacco moment'?
Besides CEO Mark Zuckerberg, this Instagram head is expected to be called to testify during the trial.
Who is Adam Mosseri?
Having already lost two similar cases, Meta is on the hook for just shy of this amount in damages before this trial even began.
What is $1 billion?
According to Bonta, this not a product or a feature was ultimately what got 'broken' by that motto.
What is the mental health of kids?
Meta and other social media companies argue that this thing the entire premise of the lawsuit doesn't actually exist.
What is social media addiction?
In May, Meta joined these three other companies in settling the first wave of school-district lawsuits, ahead of an expected trial with a Kentucky district.
What are YouTube, TikTok and Snap?