Meta disregarded its own research on teen harm, Tennessee tells jury

Highlights:

• Tennessee seeks financial penalties and changes to Instagram if the jury finds Meta liable
• Trial is expected to last seven weeks
• A New Mexico jury earlier this year ordered Meta to pay $375 million

Attorneys for the state of Tennessee told a jury in Nashville on Monday that Meta Platforms' leadership disregarded internal research about its Instagram platform's impact on teenagers as the company sought to maximise profit from young users.

During opening statements in a seven-week trial in state court in Tennessee, the state's lawyers said Meta researchers repeatedly flagged that some teenagers were compulsively using the platform, leading to eating disorders, depression and self-harm. But despite those warnings, Meta did not disable features such as autoplay, notifications and infinite scroll that, the lawyers said, were designed to keep teens on Instagram as long as possible and increase the number of ads they viewed.

An attorney for Meta countered that the company has been transparent about the risks teens face on Instagram and the amount of dangerous content that it finds. The company works hard to find problems and fix them, he said.

The power of the ping

The lawsuit, filed by Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti's office, seeks financial penalties and a court order directing Instagram to modify aspects of the platform that the state says are harmful to teens' mental health.

If the jury finds the company liable, the trial will enter a second phase before Chancellor Russell Perkins, the judge overseeing the trial, who will decide whether to order the company to pay financial penalties and make changes to Instagram to make it safer for teens.

During the opening statements, which Reuters watched on Courtroom View Network, Tom Cartmell, a lawyer for the state, played the familiar dinging sound of a notification hitting a smartphone. Unpredictable rewards like notifications trigger dopamine hits that promote addiction, which has a particularly strong impact on the brains of children, Cartmell said.

Meta understood the brain science behind why teens find its platform so irresistible, Cartmell said.

Cartmell showed the jury an internal document from 2017 in which Meta product managers wrote that features like notifications and infinite scroll "are inherently at odds with well-being" and said that the company needed to warn the public.

"This warning never came," Cartmell said.

Broader legal battle over platforms

Kevin Huff, a lawyer for Meta, said documents like those Cartmell cited are proof that the company is searching for problems on its platforms so it can improve them.

The company has developed tools to help limit problematic use of Instagram and seeks to empower teachers and parents to help keep teens safe, Huff said.

Huff urged jurors to consider whether Meta should bear sole responsibility for societal problems such as suicide, child exploitation and addiction. "We think the evidence will show that Meta is doing its part and empowering others to do their part, because protecting teens online is a shared responsibility. It takes a village."

Nearly every state in the country has filed claims against Meta over its platforms' alleged impact on children. More than two dozen of the lawsuits have been consolidated in multidistrict litigation in San Francisco, while many other states have sued in their own courts. Separately, Meta and other social media companies are facing thousands of lawsuits brought by individuals and school districts.

Tennessee's lawsuit is the second state case to reach a jury. Earlier this year, a jury in New Mexico found the company liable and ordered it to pay $375 million. A judge is weighing additional financial penalties as well as an order directing the company to change Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp in the state.