As Meta faces trial for hooking kids on social media, NC’s attorney general offers parents advice

A federal trial began Tuesday in Oakland, where Meta faces claims from a bipartisan coalition of 29 state attorneys general, including North Carolina's Jeff Jackson, that it knowingly designed Facebook and Instagram to be addictive to children and misled parents about it. The states, who sued in 2023 after Meta's attempts to dismiss the case failed, are seeking penalties, disgorged profits, and compliance with child-protection laws over a trial expected to run six weeks.

Meta rejects the allegations and points to teen-account filters, screen-time limits, and a new parental alert feature for self-harm mentions to its AI as evidence of safety efforts. The company maintains it bars under-13 users, though its own attorney acknowledged in opening statements that children simply lie about their age to sign up anyway.

Jackson says the requested penalties are meant as deterrence rather than remedy, and stresses parental responsibility regardless of the trial's outcome. Meanwhile North Carolina lawmakers are still negotiating House Bill 301, which would restrict under-14 signups and fine noncompliant platforms $50,000 per violation.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.