Tennessee informs the jury that Meta was aware Instagram was detrimental to teenagers and chose not to speak up.

      This week, a jury in Nashville was informed that Meta previously determined, in internal discussions, that the features designed to keep teenagers engaged on Instagram were “inherently at odds with well-being,” and yet the company opted to remain silent about it. This statement comes from a document from 2017 that the state of Tennessee has highlighted as central to its case, setting the tone for the opening remarks in a trial that could last up to seven weeks.

      The lawsuit, filed by Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti in the Chancery Court in Nashville before Chancellor Russell Perkins, claims that Meta breached the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act by concealing its knowledge and deploying features intended to captivate young users. This case represents the latest stage in an ongoing battle regarding Instagram's addictive design, which regulators have been pursuing for years, and it is one of the first to bring these issues before a jury rather than resolving them in writings.

      The state emphasizes features such as autoplay, Reels, push notifications, and disappearing posts as mechanisms that collectively promote compulsive usage. According to Tom Cartmell, who represents Tennessee, Meta’s product managers noted in 2017 that features like notifications and endless scrolling negatively impacted users' well-being and that the company should have issued a public warning. “This warning never came,” he stated. The state argues that Meta’s researchers documented compulsive usage among teens and its associations with eating disorders, depression, and self-harm, while leadership opted to maintain these designs because they increased advertising views.

      Much of the argument revolves around Mark Zuckerberg. The complaint claims that Meta’s CEO was frequently alerted by employees regarding research indicating that Instagram negatively affected young users' mental health, and that he chose not to finance initiatives that could have alleviated these issues. However, no executives were specifically mentioned during the opening statements, and these claims remain the state's interpretation rather than confirmed findings.

      Meta’s attorney, Kevin Huff, presented jurors with the same documents but from a different perspective. He contended that the internal research the state describes as a cover-up is actually evidence of a company actively seeking to identify and rectify problems on its platforms. He noted that Meta has created tools to minimize excessive use of Instagram and assist parents and educators in establishing boundaries, concluding with a framing that the defense will rely on: “Protecting teens online is a shared responsibility. It takes a village.”

      Outside the courtroom, the company has expressed a similar stance, stating that it has “spent a decade building safe, age-appropriate defaults for teens along with straightforward tools for parents to set the right boundaries for their families.” Over the past year, Meta has highlighted these design and default features as proof of its good intentions rather than any negligence.

      Should the jury find Meta liable, the case will proceed to a second phase before Perkins to consider penalties and potential product changes. Tennessee is seeking civil penalties of up to $1,000 for each violation, a figure that may seem modest until multiplied across a teenage user base comparable to that of a state, which is why the ultimate liability exposure is challenging to quantify and why both parties view a liability ruling as significant.

      Tennessee is not alone in this. Almost every U.S. state has filed claims against Meta concerning youth safety, and over two dozen lawsuits have been consolidated into multidistrict litigation in San Francisco. Moreover, Meta is aware of how a jury can rule; in March, a Santa Fe jury mandated that Meta pay $375 million in a separate New Mexico case related to child exploitation rather than addictive design. This verdict now looms over every subsequent state trial, including those in Nashville, which are ongoing.