Four state attorneys general are seeking $1.4 trillion in civil penalties from Meta Platforms, a figure the company disclosed in a July 6 court filing that nearly matches its roughly $1.5 trillion market capitalization.
California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey are pursuing the penalties over allegations that Meta designed Facebook and Instagram to addict young users and misled the public about the platforms’ safety.
“A sanction of that size has no analog in the history of consumer protection enforcement,” Meta said in the filing. A Meta spokesperson told Fox Business that “the plaintiffs’ outlandish calculations have no basis in fact or law.”
The states calculated the figure by multiplying the estimated number of young users affected by Meta’s design choices against per-violation fine amounts under their state laws.
Meta also enters the August proceedings having already lost a key legal argument regarding a federal claim. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers granted the states partial summary judgment in June, ruling it undisputed that Meta failed to provide proper parental notice and consent under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
While that ruling establishes Meta’s non-compliance with those specific rules, a jury will still have to decide the heavily disputed question of whether Meta’s platforms are legally considered “child-directed” to trigger the federal privacy law in the first place.
The August trial in Oakland, California, will address both the four states’ consumer protection claims and COPPA allegations brought by 29 states. California Attorney General Rob Bonta said Meta designed its platforms “to maximize profits while ensnaring children.”
Meta denies the addiction claims on the grounds that social media addiction is not a recognized psychiatric diagnosis, arguing its statements about platform safety could not constitute deception.
New Mexico was the first state to prevail at trial, with a jury awarding $375 million in March for consumer protection violations. Fourteen more states have separate claims set for trial in February.
