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In case you missed it in the spring, Meta (along with YouTube) lost a landmark social media case in California, in which a jury found the companies liable for harming a young user with certain design features in their apps.

Then, earlier this month, Meta was ordered to pay more than $940 million in the state of New Mexico for being a public nuisance and causing psychological harm to children.

Now Meta is defending itself in a federal civil trial taking place in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

The plaintiffs in this case are 29 state attorneys general who claim that Meta violated a federal privacy law protecting children, known as COPPA, by improperly collecting personal information about children under 13 without parental consent.

The lead AGs, which span four states—California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey—also say that Meta made deceptive statements about its platform that were likely to mislead consumers.

Two specific Meta apps are in focus in this trial: Facebook and Instagram. Meta maintains that it satisfied COPPA law requirements in those states, and denies that its statements about how its apps work were deceptive or misleading.

an Act passed before the wide use of social media is not a defense anyone should be able to use...

This landmark case could force significant changes to core features of Facebook and Instagram. Read the full story: