Why Meta (Facebook, Instagram) is Subject to a Fine Equivalent to One Year of Turnover

The group, owner in particular of the social networks Facebook and Instagram, but also WhatsApp, has already lost twice in court this year.

Meta faces, before federal justice, the accusation of around thirty American states of having rendered Facebook and Instagram addictive for minors: here is what the attorneys general are demanding, how they quantify it and what the group of Mark Zuckerberg, already beaten twice in court this year, responds.

What States are demanding

Leaders of a coalition of 29 states, four of them –California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey – will try to demonstrate three things in front of a jury

that Meta has equipped its platforms with features designed to retain teenagers,
that he misled the public about their dangers,
that it collected data from children under the age of 13 without parental consent, in violation of federal law.

The four prosecutors first demand the bill: nearly $200 billion in penalties, according to a still provisional figure.

The States are also asking to impose an overhaul of Facebook and Instagram for minors, via a series of measures which implicitly describe their grievances.

Their wish is to see the most protective settings automatically imposed on those under 18: hidden “like” counters, notifications cut off outside of messages from loved ones, one hour of use per day, nothing at night or during hours class, etc. Settings that a teenager could only relax by linking their account to that of a parent.

Algorithms could no longer base their recommendations on viewing time or shares, but only on declared preferences; automatic scrolling and playback would require explicit agreement; and age would be verified upon registration, other than by the declared date of birth. All under the supervision of an independent controller appointed by the court.

A year of turnover… same for Meta

No US law provides for a $200 billion fine. The figure arises from a multiplication: consumer protection laws punish each offense separately, from a few thousand to a few tens of thousands of dollars depending on the state, and prosecutors count one offense per minor affected.

Their experts estimated, based on Meta’s internal data, how many teenagers and children under the age of 13 have used Instagram and Facebook since 2012 in their jurisdictions.

Such an amount would represent almost a year of Meta’s turnover, and more than three times its annual profit.

However, no one expects such a figure in the event of conviction: the States themselves reserve the right to adjust their request by the end of the debates, and the judge, alone to decide, will weigh it according, in particular, to the capacity to pay from Meta.

Finally, the attorneys general demand the restitution of profits (disgorgement, in English), that is to say the income derived from advertisements presented to minors.

Meta plays with words

The group, “deeply disagreeing with these accusations”, bases its defense on three main blocks, already partly exposed this winter in Los Angeles, during a local trial lost against a teenage girl.

Meta defends itself against any lies: “addiction” to social networks does not appear in the DSM-5, the reference manual for American psychiatry, and the subject is scientifically debated. Denying the addictive nature of its platforms cannot therefore be a deception, at most an opinion, protected by freedom of expression.

On the children’s data, Meta admits to having ignored the parents’ consent, but maintains that this requirement does not apply to it, since those under 13 are prohibited and these spotted children have their accounts deleted, therefore it has no “effective knowledge” of their presence, a condition set by law.

No causality, finally: the mental health of adolescents “cannot be attributed to a single application”, defends the group.

“Teenage accounts”

Faced with the requested overhauls, Meta is highlighting its “adolescent accounts”, launched in September 2024. Too late and too little, the States respond: the trial judges the facts stopped in March 2024 and the time limits remain optional and rarely activated.

As for penalties, the group denounces a potential sanction “without equivalent in the history of consumer protection”: the four major tobacco companies, whose 1998 transaction to end the proceedings has become the historical reference, paid more than 176 billion dollars in a quarter of a century. And continue to pay 9 billion per year.