A federal judge has denied Meta's bid to throw out a lawsuit filed by 29 state attorneys general who allege the company knowingly engineered Facebook and Instagram to hook children, then lied about it. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers issued a 38-page ruling rejecting the tech giant's motion to dismiss, clearing the way for claims of deceptive practices, unfair business conduct, and violations of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act to move toward trial.
The decision lands at a moment when Meta is already reeling from a separate courtroom loss. A jury in a related multidistrict case found Meta and Google negligent in a landmark social media addiction trial earlier this year, awarding a multimillion-dollar verdict that included a finding of malice or highly egregious conduct. The company now faces legal pressure on two fronts, and its core defense is crumbling.
Meta argued the attorneys general lacked evidence of consumer deception. The company also contended that "social media addiction" is not a recognized psychiatric condition, a framing designed to undercut the entire premise of the case. Judge Gonzalez Rogers was not persuaded.
In her opinion, as reported by Breitbart News, Judge Gonzalez Rogers identified material factual disputes on three key questions: whether Meta's platforms are addictive, whether Meta falsely denied designing them to be addictive, and whether the company "partially" directed the platforms toward children.
The judge wrote plainly about the gap between what Meta told the public and what the evidence may show:
"The AGs present a reasonable interpretation of [Meta's] statements that Facebook and Instagram are not designed in ways that cause teens to compulsively use the platforms to their detriment. To the extent plaintiffs' evidence shows that the platforms are in fact designed to do just that, a jury could reasonably find the statements were untrue to a reasonable person."
That language matters. The court did not declare Meta guilty. But it said the states have raised enough evidence for a jury to decide whether Meta's public assurances were false. When a company says its products are safe for kids, and a federal judge says a reasonable jury could conclude otherwise, the company has a serious problem.
On the COPPA claims, the ruling went further. Judge Gonzalez Rogers granted summary judgment to the states on the question of whether Meta complied with COPPA's notice and parental consent requirements. Summary judgment means the court found no genuine factual dispute on that point, Meta failed to meet the law's requirements, and no trial is needed to establish it.
Part of Meta's legal strategy involved pointing to Mark Zuckerberg's congressional testimony as evidence of the company's good faith. The specifics of that testimony, when it occurred and what Zuckerberg said, were not detailed in the ruling. But leaning on congressional appearances as a shield against state-level fraud claims is a thin reed. Congressional testimony is often carefully scripted by lawyers. It does not substitute for what a company's internal records, design choices, and product decisions actually reveal.
An unnamed Meta spokesperson offered a statement defending the company's track record. The spokesperson said Meta has "listened to parents, worked with experts and law enforcement, and conducted in-depth research" for over a decade, adding that the company is "proud of the progress we've made."
The states are telling a different story. California Attorney General Rob Bonta called the ruling a "critical win" in the effort to hold Meta accountable for what he described as fueling a mental health crisis among American children. Twenty-eight other state attorneys general apparently agree, a bipartisan coalition that spans the political map, even if the specific states were not enumerated in the ruling.
This ruling does not exist in isolation. Judge Gonzalez Rogers also oversees a related multidistrict litigation involving more than 2,600 individuals, school districts, and local governments pressing similar claims against social media companies. That sprawling proceeding produced the landmark trial that began in January 2026 and ended in March with a jury finding Meta and Google negligent.
During that trial, a 20-year-old woman identified as KGM, or "Kaley," testified that childhood use of social media created an addiction and worsened her mental health. The jury deliberated for more than 40 hours across nine days before returning its verdict. A punitive damages phase was set to follow. TikTok and Snap had already settled before the trial began, a signal that some companies saw the legal writing on the wall.
Federal courts are increasingly willing to let these cases proceed, and recent appellate rulings clearing state-level parental consent laws for social media suggest the judiciary is taking children's online safety more seriously than Silicon Valley would prefer.
The pattern is clear. Juries are finding liability. Judges are refusing to dismiss. Settlements are being reached by companies that would rather pay than face a courtroom. And the central question, did these companies design their products to addict minors for profit?, keeps surviving every legal challenge thrown at it.
Meta's argument that "social media addiction" is not a recognized psychiatric condition is technically debatable. But it misses the point the states are making. The attorneys general are not asking a court to update the DSM. They are alleging that Meta designed specific features, autoplay, infinite scroll, notification triggers, algorithmic content feeds, to maximize engagement among young users, knew those features caused harm, and publicly denied it.
That is a consumer fraud theory, not a medical diagnosis. And the judge treated it as such.
The COPPA summary judgment is arguably the most damaging part of the ruling for Meta. Congress passed the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act to require verifiable parental consent before companies collect personal information from children under 13. The court found Meta did not comply with those requirements, not as a disputed allegation, but as a matter of settled fact. No trial needed.
For a company that has spent years insisting it takes child safety seriously, that finding is difficult to square. You cannot claim to protect children while a federal court has already determined, on summary judgment, that you failed to follow the federal law specifically written to protect children's privacy online.
The broader legal and political battles facing major institutions and corporations continue to multiply, and Meta's courtroom losses are adding up at a pace the company's public relations operation cannot easily manage.
Conservative voters and parents have long demanded that Big Tech face real consequences for the damage its products inflict on children. This is not a left-right issue in the traditional sense. Red-state and blue-state attorneys general alike signed onto this lawsuit. The common thread is not partisan ideology, it is the recognition that a handful of companies built products that changed childhood in America, and those companies have resisted every attempt at transparency and accountability.
Meta's spokesperson said the company is "always working to do better." That phrase has become a Silicon Valley cliché, a vague promise of future improvement that conveniently avoids admitting past failures. Judge Gonzalez Rogers's ruling suggests the courts are no longer willing to accept that kind of assurance at face value.
As state governments continue to test the boundaries of regulation across multiple industries, the social media accountability push stands out because it commands genuine bipartisan support. Twenty-nine attorneys general do not file a joint lawsuit on a whim.
The case now moves toward trial on the deceptive practices and unfair business conduct claims. Meta will have every opportunity to present its defense. But the company wanted this case killed at the motion-to-dismiss stage, and the judge said no. The COPPA question is already decided against them. The factual disputes the judge identified, addiction, deceptive denial, targeting children, will be laid out before a jury.
Parents who watched their kids disappear into Instagram feeds at age 12 already know what the evidence will show. Now a courtroom will have to decide whether Meta does, too.
