Meta meets its own 'tobacco' moment in court

With billions of users around the world, Meta will defend itself against allegations of harming children in a new trial in the United States this week, which experts describe as social media's big tobacco moment.

After a coalition of states sued Meta in 2023 for allegedly designing addictive features for kids in its apps, four states were selected to represent their claims: California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey.

Top prosecutors of those states now aim to prove in federal court that Meta deliberately made Facebook and Instagram addictive for children.

Meta "strongly disagrees with these allegations" and is "confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people," a spokesperson told AFP, adding that the company has "listened to parents, worked with experts and law enforcement."

Although it's not the first lawsuit that seeks to hold a social media company accountable for its impact on mental health and safety, it could become one of the most consequential.

"It really feels like tobacco in the 1990s," Vincent Joralemon, a director at Berkeley's Life Sciences Law and Policy Center, told AFP.

While these cases about social media harms revolve around the intersection of technology and addiction, the legal argument in this case against Meta centers on its business practices, just like when the federal government sued tobacco companies around three decades ago, Joralemon said.

By the early 1990s, decades of research showed that tobacco use caused health problems such as cancer, and eventually additional investigations revealed how the industry deliberately downplayed, and even concealed, the harmful impacts of its products.

Dozens of US states sued four major tobacco companies, and by 1998, won a landmark settlement agreement which included financial penalties and changes to how products were marketed, particularly to children whom the industry targeted with advertisements featuring cartoon characters, the most famous of which was known as "Joe Camel."

Jury selection begins today in Oakland, a short drive from San Francisco and opening statements are expected to begin August 18.

Meta was convicted on similar grounds in separate trials held in Los Angeles and New Mexico, with combined damages that approach $1 billion.

In Oakland, the states are demanding a long list of changes to Meta's apps, in addition to financial penalties as high as $1.4 trillion, close to Meta's entire market value which hovers around $1.5 trillion.

Despite the eye-popping number, money isn't Meta's biggest problem, if it were to lose the case.

"The huge issue here is reputational harm" and being forced to make major changes, Joralemon said.

"Putting a CEO on the witness stand can be quite damning," as well, he said.

Meta founder and chief Mark Zuckerberg is among the star witnesses expected to testify.

The case could be "the beginning of a broader reckoning" for Meta, Nora Freeman Engstrom told AFP via email. She is a law professor and associate dean at Stanford.

It will be important to see the "gap" between what Meta knew privately and what it disclosed publicly, Engstrom said.

Meta is "confident in our record of protecting teens online and will continue to defend ourselves against claims that misrepresent the facts," Meta told AFP last week.

With so many plaintiffs suing Meta and other social media companies, these lawsuits could potentially "go on for decades," Joralemon said.

In May, Snap, TikTok, YouTube and Meta settled with a school district in Kentucky for $27 million to avoid another trial that was expected to set a precedent for around 1,200 similar lawsuits.

On Monday, a federal appeals court ruled that more than 3,000 additional lawsuits filed against Meta, YouTube-parent Google, Snap and TikTok can proceed.