Meta says four states want $1.4 trillion in penalties at August youth-safety trial
Meta has told a federal court that four US states are seeking $1.4 trillion in penalties over claims it engineered Facebook and Instagram to hook young users, a figure the company put on the record in a filing on Monday. The sum, first reported by Reuters, sits uncomfortably close to Meta’s own market capitalisation of about $1.5 trillion.
The number appeared in Meta’s response to filings by California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey on how penalties should be calculated should the states prevail at trial. A judge cleared the states to try those claims after refusing to dismiss them, and independent estimates suggest the eventual payouts could dwarf even Meta’s vast AI budget.
Meta was quick to call the sum absurd. “A sanction of that size has no analog in the history of consumer protection enforcement,” the company wrote, arguing that the amount was unsupported by the evidence,...
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