By Diana Novak Jones
July 20 (Reuters) – Meta Platforms faces trial in Tennessee on Monday over the state’s claims that Instagram’s design is to blame for a youth mental-health crisis, one of several trials in the coming weeks testing allegations that the company’s social media platforms were intentionally built to be addictive.
Tennessee accuses the company of violating the state’s consumer protection law by knowingly designing a product that drives teens to compulsive use and misleading the public about its safety.
The lawsuit, filed by Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti’s office, claims Meta failed to disclose extensive internal research showing Instagram could harm teens and continued offering features it knew were dangerous without warning users.
The state alleges founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was repeatedly warned by some Meta employees about research that found a negative impact on teens, but declined to fund efforts to minimize those harms and made misleading public statements about the amount of harmful content on the platforms.
Skrmetti is seeking financial penalties and a court order directing Instagram to modify aspects of the platform that the state says are harmful to teens’ mental health. The case focuses on features like autoplay, Instagram’s Reels videos, notifications and designs that cause content to disappear after a certain period.
A Meta spokesperson said in a statement on Friday that the company already has built-in controls to protect the hundreds of thousands of Tennessee teens who use social media every day.
“We want them to do that in a protected space, which is why we’ve spent a decade building safe, age-appropriate defaults for teens alongside simple tools for parents to set the right boundaries for their family,” the spokesperson said.
The company has argued the state’s claims of harm are based on the content posted on Instagram by its users, and that a federal law, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, shields the company from liability for third-party content.
OVERLAPPING TRIALS
Jury selection will begin in Nashville on Monday for the first phase of the trial. The jury will decide whether Meta violated Tennessee law. If the jury finds it did, the case will move to a second phase where the judge will weigh monetary penalties and potential changes to Instagram. Tennessee’s consumer protection law levies a fine of up to $1,000 per violation.
The trial, which is slated to last for seven weeks, is scheduled to overlap with at least two other trials against the company in courts in California as it faces thousands of lawsuits over similar claims in both state and federal court.
