On August 18, 2026, in a federal courtroom in Oakland, Facebook and Instagram came under a decidedly unfriendly lens. It started on trial against Meta brought by a coalition of US state attorneys general, with accusations regarding the way in which the platforms were designed for younger people and the collection of data belonging to children under 13 years old. The procedure will last approximately six to eight weeks.
The number to keep in mind is 29, with a clarification that avoids transforming the trial into an incomprehensible judicial matryoshka. All 29 states are involved in challenges based on the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), the federal law that governs the collection of data from children under 13. At this stage, California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey also bring to court their own accusations on consumer protection and on the statements that Meta would have made regarding the safety of the platforms. Lawyers from these four states are conducting the trial with support from other coalition members.
Meta must answer for the way it built Facebook and Instagram
The lawsuit started in 2023 and brings together two issues that have remained on the sidelines of discussion on social media for years. One concerns children who, despite the 13-year age limit set by the platforms, still manage to open and use accounts. According to the States, Meta had knowledge of the presence of younger users and collected their data without obtaining parental consent required by COPPA. Meta disputes this reconstruction.
The other issue goes directly into product design. The attorneys general accuse Meta of having built and promoted some features of Facebook and Instagram in order to increase the time spent on the platforms and encourage compulsive behavior among children and adolescents, while simultaneously presenting the services as safe. In the original application, recommendation algorithms, notifications, likes, filters that change the appearance and infinite scrolling appear.
Here, however, a thick edge is needed. The trial opened in Oakland is not equivalent to a judicial referendum on infinite scrolling and some design-related challenges have already been restricted by the Court in application, among other things, of Section 230, the American law that limits the liability of platforms for content published by users. In the June 29 order, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers indicates, among the features that remain directly at the center of the accusations of unfair practice, the filters that modify the appearance, the tools intended to limit the time spent online and the possibility of managing multiple accounts on Instagram.
The allegations about misleading statements are broader in scope. In the same order, the judge rejected Meta’s attempt to close the case before trial because there are still factual disputes that need to be evaluated. The documents filed include internal materials in which some employees discussed compulsive use, addiction and children’s difficulty managing the time spent on Instagram. The Court considered them sufficient to send the matter to the trier of fact; .
And it’s an important difference. Meta claims that so-called “social media addiction” is not a diagnosis recognized in the DSM-5 or ICD-11 and disputes that states have demonstrated that Facebook and Instagram cause the damage reported. The Court established that the absence of a formally recognized diagnosis is not enough, in itself, to close the discussion on the problematic or compulsive use of the platforms. The trial will determine how long the prosecution case holds up.
The famous 1.4 trillion dollars is not a pre-written fine
Then there is the figure that inevitably makes the most noise: 1.4 trillion dollars. It’s big enough to warrant a lot of caution even before the zeros.
The sum appeared in a filing filed by Meta in July and stems from the way the company applied the calculation method indicated by California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey to the alleged violations. The States explained at the hearing that they wanted to multiply the number of possible violations by the sanctions provided for by their respective laws; However, their detailed memories of the calculation are sealed. The 1.4 trillion, therefore, is not a fine already imposed or even an amount decided by the court. First you need proven responsibility. Then, eventually, the bill will arrive.
Meta considers that calculation baseless and disproportionate. States instead argue that the potential number of violations should reflect the number of young users affected. The process will have to go through many miles before arriving at a final figure, if it gets there at all.
In New Mexico a judge has already ordered some functions to be changed
Oakland starts with a fresh precedent behind it. On August 6th a court of New Mexicoin a separate lawsuit, ruled that Meta’s platforms helped create a public nuisancea collective damage to public health and safety in the State. The decision comes after an initial phase in which a jury had already recognized 75 thousand violations of the local law on consumer protection, imposing $375 million in fines.
In the second phase, Judge Bryan Biedscheid ordered Meta to pay more $567 million in a fund intended for five years for the prevention, screening and treatment of damage to the mental health of young people. Simply calling it a “567 million fine” therefore misses an important piece: it is a damage reduction fund, additional to the 375 million established by the jury. Meta has announced an appeal.
The part that most directly affects the functioning of social media is a few pages later. For users under 18 in New Mexico, the court ordered to eliminate push notifications during the night and during school hours, hide the number of likes by default and introduce an overall limit of 90 hours a month between Facebook and Instagram. The judge instead rejected the request to intervene directly on the recommendation algorithms, judging those measures to be too vague and problematic with respect to the First Amendment and Section 230.
It’s a detail that greatly undermines the idea of a court ready to dismantle Instagram piece by piece with a screwdriver. Judges can order concrete changes; they also encounter very concrete limitations.
In Europe the battle over social media design has already begun
For Italian users, Oakland remains an American trial and its possible ruling would not automatically change Facebook and Instagram in Europe. Here, however, the design of the platforms has already ended up on the regulators’ table.
On 10 July 2026, the European Commission communicated a preliminary assessment that the design of Instagram and Facebook would violate the Digital Services Act. The investigation explicitly mentions infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications and highly personalized recommendation systems and accuses Meta of not having adequately assessed and mitigated the risks to the physical and mental well-being of users, including minors. The conclusion is still preliminary: Meta can respond to the complaints before a possible final decision.
Already in April 2026, Brussels had preliminarily complained to Meta that it was not doing enough to prevent children under 13 from accessing Instagram and Facebook. And European child protection guidelines recommend turning off by default various features that drive excessive use, including autoplay, push notifications, ephemeral content, and read receipts.
The two legal paths are different. In the United States, courts, attorneys general, COPPA, and state consumer laws are talking. In the European Union, the DSA mainly works, with preventive obligations of risk assessment and reduction. The target, curiously, is starting to look a lot alike: platforms are also examined for how they are built, not just for what users post on them.
Oakland must determine whether some of those product choices, when they involve children and adolescents, can become legal facts with a price and a change order. The feed continues to scroll. For the next six to eight weeks, it will also proceed in federal court.
