When lawyers in court seek remedies that amount to a thorough carpet bombing of the defendant, it is natural to ask whether such remedies are proportional to the offenses alleged.
The question quickly emerges, almost compelling an answer, in an ongoing case brought by the attorneys general of four states—California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey—against Meta. In a filing released this week, it was revealed that the states are pursuing $1.4 trillion in penalties and disgorgement against the company.
However, extravagant demands from government litigators are better suited to generate breathless headlines than favorable court rulings. No benefits flow from frivolously conducted litigation; and, as attorneys general raid public coffers, such litigation costs taxpayers dearly.
First, the $1.4 trillion, a monumental figure with more zeros than most people have fingers. Meta’s market capitalization, which comes in at $1.562 trillion, only barely exceeds it. It is the rough equivalent of the projected 2026 nominal GDP of Saudi Arabia ($1.39 trillion) and the Netherlands ($1.45 trillion). In fact, only 17 nations this year will outproduce those two. In this legal battle, the states pursue a near-complete annexation of the company, not equitable restitution for some alleged crime.
A ready analogue cannot be found in recent caselaw. For example, in another suit litigating the effects of social media on children, a jury settled in March on the comparatively puny figure of $6 million, distributed between Meta and YouTube. Those damages were no servile sop to the technology industry; they followed a dubious jury verdict, likely to fall on appeal, which improperly dismissed the copious exculpatory evidence assembled by the defendants. Judgments in even the most egregiously decided product liability cases—including those unrelated to social media—generally do not rise above the low-billions.
The calculations by which the states reached their trillion-dollar sum resemble the requirements of the law about as well as the first monkey’s efforts at the typewriter resembled “Hamlet.” According to Meta’s filing (the filings of the states remain sealed), “[t]he [attorneys general] seek maximum penalties for every day each month that any teen spent more than a half-hour, one hour, or two hours on Meta’s platforms.” Multiplying a dollar figure by the number of underage users who spend even a little time daily on social media—all while demonstrating no harm to these users—can hardly satisfy the demands of the law.
Neither the claims made by Meta nor the trio of platform design features being litigated—let alone the alleged violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act—merits under the law what would amount to a corporate execution. These are discrete allegations of lawbreaking, and any remedy must match their magnitude. The label “commonsense” is serially abused in contemporary political debates, but this proposition seems to be commonsensical.
Only if the object of the states’ crusade is expanded beyond the legal particulars of this case—only if social media platforms are considered as enemies of American society and American children, and not as ordinary defendants contending against specific claims, can one make sense of the $1.4 trillion request.
Indeed, in June, the states argued that “one of our theories is that Meta built the platforms to be addictive to teens.” Let this theory be agreed to arguendo—notwithstanding the fact that it has withstood scrutiny like a dry leaf in a forest fire—and it benefits the attorneys general hardly at all. The general effects of social media are not at issue in this case, and, as Meta’s filing notes, the judge previously removed from consideration many relevant product features that bear upon this question.
The public enemy is not a character in the drama of the American legal system, which stands solidly atop a foundation of justice, and not arbitrary power and indiscriminate retribution. No individual or corporation may, by becoming sufficiently mistrusted by public opinion or a few public officials, be subjected in court to a wholesale confiscation of its assets beyond what the law permits.
A republic, in one classic formulation, is defined by the rule of law, and not of men. This applies alike to proverbial “big guys” and “little guys.” Liberty and justice for all, as the Pledge of Allegiance has it. Anxiety about new technologies ought not to alter this foundation, and there is little chance a court will allow this eventuality to come to pass.
David B. McGarry is the research director of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance.