On a Monday morning in Nashville, a jury took its seats for what may become one of the most consequential technology trials in American legal history. Attorneys for the state of Tennessee told the court that Meta — the parent company of Instagram and Facebook — had knowingly ignored its own researchers' warnings about the harm its platforms were causing teenagers, choosing instead to protect a business model built on keeping young eyes glued to screens for as long as possible. The state's lead attorney, Tom Cartmell, showed the jury an internal Meta document from 2017 in which the company's own product managers had written that features such as notifications and infinite scroll "are inherently at odds with well-being." Cartmell argued that Instagram's design deliberately triggers dopamine responses that are especially powerful in adolescent brains, driving compulsive use linked to eating disorders, depression and self-harm.

"This warning never came," he told the jury, referring to a public disclosure that Tennessee says Meta was obligated to make. Meta's attorney, Kevin Huff, offered a different reading of the same evidence. He argued that the existence of such internal documents demonstrated transparency rather than concealment: a company actively searching for problems on its platforms in order to fix them. Meta, he said, has worked consistently to identify and remove dangerous content, and has been open about the risks teenagers face online.