Meta faces trial in Tennessee over Instagram teen addiction claims

Meta went to trial in Nashville on Monday to face legal claims that Instagram was intentionally designed to drive compulsive use among teenagers. The lawsuit, filed by Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti's office, accuses the social media company of violating state consumer protection laws. State prosecutors argue that the organisation deliberately engineered the platform to be impossible for young people to put down while misleading the public about safety.

Reuters reported that the state claims Meta possessed internal research demonstrating user harm but continued releasing risky features without providing adequate warnings. Skrmetti's legal team alleges that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg received repeated warnings from internal employees regarding these findings, yet declined to fund efforts to address the issue. Tennessee is seeking financial penalties alongside court orders requiring direct modifications to Instagram's design, targeting specific features such as autoplay, Reels, notifications, and disappearing content.

Meta pointed to a decade of development spent on age-appropriate default settings and parental controls. The company argued that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shields it from liability regarding content published by users. Jury selection began Monday for the first phase of the trial, where jurors will determine whether Meta broke Tennessee law. If found liable, a second phase will see a judge consider platform modifications alongside fines ranging from zero to $1,000 per offence under state regulations.

The trial is predicted to last seven weeks and overlaps with two other court proceedings against Meta in California. Nearly all US states have filed lawsuits against Meta regarding platform influences on children, including a federal trial involving 29 states scheduled for August 18 in California, and another suit filed by a Florida teenager starting on July 27. This proceeding marks the second state case against Meta to reach a jury, following a New Mexico trial where jurors found Meta misled consumers on safety and ordered $375 million in damages.