No more doom scrolling or Instagram Stories? A Meta trial loss could end the social media we know

Meta says it faces a trillion-dollar penalty and damage to its advertising model. But the trial could go well beyond one company. It could make social media unrecognizable. 

The states want the court to force Meta to remove “certain addictive design features” from its platforms, Instagram and Facebook. These include infinite scrolling, autoplaying videos, disappearing content such as Instagram Stories, beauty filters, and algorithm-dominated feeds.

During her opening statements on Tuesday, California’s deputy attorney general, Megan O’Neill, said that Meta is choosing profit over safety, hiding the “reality” of under-13s on its platforms, and that its business model is to “hook the users, hold them for as long as they can, harvest their data, and then hide the truth from the public.” 

“This trial is potentially the end of social media as we know it,” Kate Winick, a principal analyst at Forrester, said.

“Any verdict against Meta would set a massive precedent,” Winick added. “These trials are often compared to the Big Tobacco lawsuits of the 90s, and the outcome will likely be analogous as well: the product is going to be harder for young people to access and the cultural message around social media is going to change.” 

And California Attorney General Rob Bonta said Meta is just the “first in line,” as various U.S. state attorneys general take social-media companies to court over harms. There are pending lawsuits against YouTube and Snap too. 

“Who goes first? Who goes last? Ideally, they all go at the same time,” Bonta said. “That’s not possible. In an ideal world, they would all commit to the same reforms and changes to all kids and keep them safe.”

Meta and YouTube were already found negligent in a blockbuster social media addiction trial in Los Angeles in March, in which the plaintiff was a young woman who said she became addicted to their apps as a child. She said the platforms’ design caused her severe body dysmorphia, depression and suicidal thoughts. 

Winick predicted that other social media platforms like Snap, which has a younger user base, would likely make “preemptive changes” to align with any changes forced on Meta by the trial. 

“It’s unlikely that this will permanently kill the industry, but it will significantly reduce usage over the long term as young users fail to be introduced to the platforms,” she added. 

“The real existential threat to Meta and social media as an industry is if similar lawsuits follow from adults alleging the same problems and effects,” Winick said.