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Judge calls both sides' penalty figures extreme in the Meta addiction trial
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has rejected both parties' civil penalty estimates ahead of the advisory jury trial in Oakland, now set to begin on 12 August 2026. In a three-hour pretrial hearing, she called the state's $1.4 trillion calculation unreasonable, while describing Meta's $4m counter-proposal as not even a slap on the hand.
What changed
California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey brought the claims, which sit inside the social media addiction MDL in the Northern District of California, continuing the $1.4tn filing covered in Week 29.
The court separately denied several motions to seal, warning both sides that it will not shield case materials from the public without specific justification.
Why it matters for advertisers
For you, this means the penalty headline is unlikely to survive to judgment, but the unsealing order matters more: internal design documents entering the public record are where the substantive disclosures usually come from, so watch the filings as much as the verdict.
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Original newsletter text and archive evidence
Judge calls both sides' penalty figures extreme in the Meta addiction trial
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has rejected both parties' civil penalty estimates ahead of the advisory jury trial in Oakland, now set to begin on 12 August 2026. In a three-hour pretrial hearing, she called the state's $1.4 trillion calculation unreasonable, while describing Meta's $4m counter-proposal as not even a slap on the hand. California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey brought the claims, which sit inside the social media addiction MDL in the Northern District of California, continuing the $1.4tn filing covered in Week 29.
The court separately denied several motions to seal, warning both sides that it will not shield case materials from the public without specific justification. For you, this means the penalty headline is unlikely to survive to judgment, but the unsealing order matters more: internal design documents entering the public record are where the substantive disclosures usually come from, so watch the filings as much as the verdict.
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