Meta blasted by state AGs as 'deceptive' company that chose profits over safety

August 18, 2026, 23:13 GMT | Insight Standing before a bank of TV cameras following the start of their addictive design trial against Meta Platforms, the attorneys general of California, Colorado and New Jersey blasted the social media giant as a duplicitous company that chose profits over the safety of users, copying the playbook of Big Tobacco.

The three states, along with Kentucky, are leading a 29-state bipartisan coalition that is seeking $200 billion or more in civil penalties, disgorgement and restitution, as well as changes to what the states say are addictive features in Instagram and Facebook, such as infinite scroll. Opening statements were Tuesday morning (see here) with the trial expected to run through September.

Meta's senior leadership "knew their product was dangerous, and they lied to the public," California Attorney General Rob Bonta said at the top of a press conference in Oakland, California, near the federal courthouse where the trial will play out over the next five to seven weeks. "They told the public — they told the world— that their product was safe, that it wasn't dangerous. And so their deception, their lies, are at the core of our case."

New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport said Meta has made it impossible for parents to make good decisions about whether their children should be on Facebook and Instagram because the company uses "deceptive advertising or lies about safety."

"I'm disgusted. I'm angry. We all should be angry," Davenport told reporters. "A trillion-dollar tech company like Meta is risking our kids' mental health and physical safety. Our data and our children's data are being fed into their addictive algorithms to help further increase their profits, and they've lied to us about the safety of their platforms, including how they exploit the vulnerabilities of young children and teens."

And Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, a former US Department of Justice official who helped lead the coalition of states that sued Meta in federal court on antitrust allegations in 2020 (see here), said there is a direct "through-line" from the states' case against Meta to the Big Tobacco cases brought by an earlier generation of state law enforcers.

"The way that Meta has managed Instagram and Facebook has been, as AG Bonta described, deceptive. It's been wrongful, and it's been illegal," Weiser said. "It has harmed families like yours. It has hurt communities. It's prevented kids from thriving and damaged a generation of young people."

Asked by MLex to name their top priority for changes in Meta's business practices, the attorneys general all criticized Meta for not being truthful about the harm some young users can suffer on its social media apps.

"First, stop the deception. They know the truth; tell the truth," Weiser said. "We have a youth mental health crisis that is fueled by extensive social media engagement that includes dangerous content. They've downplayed this harm. They need to come clean."

One thing that is different from three earlier addictive design trials against Meta this year is the states' allegation that the company violated the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, by collecting the personal data of millions of children under the age of 13 on Facebook and Instagram.

"It's a tough question because everything that we've advanced here is very important, but I would say stop lying, stop misrepresenting, stop deceiving the public," Bonta said, describing the changes he wants the trial to achieve. "We're going to say please comply with the federal law that is clear around our youngest children. Stop collecting and using the data of 11- and 12-year-olds. Stop targeting them. Stop pretending that you're not targeting them. Stop pretending that they're not on your platform. Don't let them on your platform ever. Stop collecting their data."

Meta, Davenport said, must "allow people to make choices based on information that is true."

Bonta had particularly harsh criticism for Mark Zuckerberg, who may testify in the trial, although it's not clear when.

"Mark Zuckerberg, the founder, chairman, CEO of Meta, personally, personally," Bonta said, repeating himself for emphasis, "axed Meta's proposed policy to ban image filters that simulated the effects of plastic surgery, despite internal pushback from his own team."

Zuckerberg "was presented with a choice where his own staff was telling him 'This will hurt kids if you do it. We think you shouldn't do it.' And he overlooked them and said, 'Do it,' knowingly harming kids and then later telling the world that their product was safe," Bonta added.

While many news outlets have reported that the states are seeking $1.4 trillion in fines, restitution and disgorgement if Meta is found liable by the advisory jury and US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, Bonta rejected that number Tuesday and said Meta was using it to manipulate the media into making itself the "victim."

"To be clear, we are not asking for $1.4 trillion," Bonta said. "I do want to be clear about who the victims are here. Meta is not the victim; Meta is the perpetrator. The kids, their families, the parents, those who no longer have the benefit of a loved one in their life because that kid killed themselves because of the mental health visited upon them by Instagram and Facebook — those are the victims. Meta is not the victim."

A lawyer for California said in court last week that $200 billion is a more likely financial penalty for the states to seek from Meta (see here).

Meta said in a written statement in response to the remarks from the attorneys general that the states have no proof anyone in their states was misled, and they are attempting "to penalize Meta for industry-wide challenges" such as identifying children younger than 13 on their apps.

"We strongly disagree with these allegations and are confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people," the company said. "We've listened to parents, worked with experts and law enforcement, and conducted in-depth research to understand the issues that matter most. We're proud of the progress we've made, and we're always working to do better."

In court, the states began their evidence case, putting former Meta engineering director Arturo Bejar on the witness stand following the conclusion of opening statements.

Bejar, a key witness for the plaintiffs in the three previous addictive design trials against Meta this year, focused on the gap between the public statistics Meta released about the prevalence of violent, sexual, bullying, self-harm and other problematic content on Facebook and Instagram, and the internal data it had about the much higher incidence of harms its users experienced, particularly teens aged 13 to 15.

A key point Bejar made in testimony, which the eight-member jury appeared to be following intently, was that the prevalence of harmful content on Facebook and Instagram is not an index of actual harm.

Jason Slothouber, a lawyer from the Colorado attorney general's office, walked Bejar though Meta's public reporting that the prevalence of content about bullying, self-harm and suicide was extremely low — in the area of .05 percent. But Meta's own internal studies, including one done by Bejar and other members of the company's "Well-being team," showed that the share of users reporting that their mental health was harmed by content they saw, particularly users between 13 and 15, was up to 100 times higher, Bejar said.

Bejar said he led an unsuccessful in-house effort in late 2021 to alert Meta's top leadership, including Zuckerberg, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and Instagram chief Adam Mosseri, about the true scale of harmful content.

"We wanted to bring up, at every layer of management, the harm people were experiencing that was the result of how the product was designed — that was preventable in our experience," Bejar said, turning to face the eight jurors as he spoke.

The trial will resume Wednesday morning with more testimony from Bejar.

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