Meta has stated that the potential penalty has “no parallels in history.”
According to Reuters, Meta is facing fines of up to $1.4 trillion from four U.S. states that have sued the company over the addictive design of Facebook and Instagram. These states – California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey – have also accused the company of misleading the public about the safety of these apps. This previously undisclosed amount is close to Meta’s market capitalization of $1.5 trillion.
At a court hearing last month, the states said they calculated the fines by estimating the number of young users harmed by Meta’s platforms and multiplying that number by the penalties set by state laws. Meta disclosed this figure in response to a request from state attorneys general on how fines should be calculated but argued that the amount is unjustified. “Penalties of this scale are without precedent in the history of consumer protection enforcement,” Meta’s lawyers wrote in a court filing.
Mark Zuckerberg’s company is also facing additional lawsuits from 29 other states, which are not included in the $1.4 trillion claims. Most of these allege that the company violated the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by collecting children’s data without the necessary parental consent. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will hear these cases, along with the four state lawsuits, at a trial in August. Another 14 states have filed suits under local laws, which will be heard in a separate trial in February 2027.
Meta has previously denied these allegations, arguing that “social media addiction” is not a recognized psychiatric disorder. Instagram chief Adam Mosseri earlier compared it to being “addicted” to a Netflix series. In response, the American Psychiatric Association stated that “social media addiction is not currently listed as a diagnosis in the DSM-5-TR [diagnostic manual] – but that does not mean it doesn’t exist.”
Jury trials have found the states’ claims to be valid, and one recently awarded New Mexico $375 million, concluding that Meta misled consumers in the state. Meta and other social networks also recently paid $27 million to settle a lawsuit from a Kentucky school district over similar allegations.
