If Meta loses this trial, Instagram and Facebook could change forever

“Like” counts, for instance, have been part of Meta since its early years, when it was still called Facebook and that was its only platform.

Today, likes are omnipresent on social media platforms. It is the main way in which people engage with text, photos and videos they see online.

Yet, likes are increasingly viewed as a way to foster negative feelings, particularly among young people.

Kaley, a young woman who prevailed in her lawsuit against Meta earlier this year, described during court testimony how she created dozens of accounts on YouTube and Instagram.

She would use the system of accounts to create likes on her own posts, hoping to drive engagement with other users and her own feelings of validation and self-worth. Kaley was only nine years old at the time. She said she remembered feeling depressed, something she was later diagnosed with, aged 10.

Research over the last several years has shown that engagement metrics such as like counts can drive feelings of rejection and depression, external in teenagers.

In the states’ lawsuit against Meta, in which the company said it has handed over more than 2 million documents, lawyers pointed to Meta’s own research that showed like counts drove “social comparison”, or the mental act of marking one’s self worth against images of someone else.

That social comparison driven by Instagram was linked to “increased loneliness, worse body image, and negative mood or affect”, according to Meta’s internal research.

As Judge Biedscheid put it in his order, external, which was the first time a social media company has been deemed a “public nuisance”, the way Meta’s platforms have operated for over a decade has been part of a growing “youth mental health crisis” in New Mexico and elsewhere.

Now, attorneys from 30 more states will be pushing Judge Gonzalez Rogers to reach the same conclusion.