OAKLAND, California: Meta Platforms intentionally sought to get children hooked on Facebook and Instagram to increase their use of the platforms, a lawyer for California told jurors on August 18 as a landmark trial involving 29 U.S. states began.

A bipartisan group of states is suing Meta, seeking potentially tens or hundreds of billions of dollars in penalties and changes to how the company operates.

Four lead states — California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey — accuse Meta of designing Facebook and Instagram to hook young users, fueling anxiety, depression and even suicide, while misleading consumers about the platforms' safety.

All 29 states also claim Meta violated federal law by improperly collecting and using children's personal data.

Megan O'Neill, a deputy attorney general for California, told the eight-person jury that Meta's business model was to "hook the users, hold them for as long as they can, harvest their data, and then hide the truth from the public."

"It worked especially well for kids," she added. "Meta needed kids, and it needed to reassure the people who cared about those kids that the kids are safe."

Jurors are expected to issue an advisory verdict, while U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will determine Meta's liability. If she finds the company liable, she could impose civil penalties and order changes to Facebook and Instagram.

Meta is expected to argue that it has made a significant effort to keep children safe online. The company has said it did not make misleading statements about safety and that the states failed to show their residents were harmed.

Meta co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram chief Adam Mosseri are expected to testify during the six-week trial.

Meta has said potential penalties could reach $1.4 trillion, close to the company's market value. The attorneys general have not specified the penalties they are seeking, but said at a hearing last week the amount could be closer to $200 billion.

California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey are also seeking age restrictions and the elimination of infinite scroll, which encourages users to continue looking at new posts.

O'Neill said the states were not seeking to put Meta or social media out of business."This case is not about whether social media has some benefits for some people. It does," she said.

She accused Meta of exploiting children, researching how their brains work and react to online stimuli and tracking their interactions on its apps.

O'Neill showed jurors an internal email sent to Mosseri that said "teen time spent" was the company's goal. She also said Meta employees described Instagram as a "drug" and themselves as "pushers."

"Meta found the younger a kid is when they start using the app, the better," O'Neill said. "The more likely they are to remain a user, the more likely they are to make Meta money in the long run."

Before the trial, a Meta spokesperson said the states' claims were unsubstantiated and defended the company's protections for teenagers.

"The AGs offer no proof anyone in their states was misled, claim benign features like having an additional Instagram account somehow harmed their residents, and attempt to penalize Meta for industry-wide challenges like age verification," the spokesperson said. "Rather than sticking to the facts or the law, the states have instead decided to chase an outlandish payout."

The lawsuit began in 2023, two years after whistleblower Frances Haugen testified to a U.S. Senate committee that Meta knew its products were unsafe for children and knew how to fix the problem, but did nothing in favor of pursuing higher profits.