‘The young ones are the best ones’: the Meta documents now in front of an Oakland judge
August 19, 2026 – 11:58 am
A 2016 internal email revealing Instagram’s goal to maximize "teen time spent" is now an exhibit in an Oakland courtroom. It’s one of several internal documents presented to a federal judge this week in a landmark trial stemming from a lawsuit covering 3,000 claims.
The trial began on Tuesday before Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in the Northern District of California, following her decision to not dismiss the case six weeks prior.
Four states—California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey—are leading a 29-state coalition with consumer-protection and COPPA claims. Eight jurors, consisting of five women and three men, are hearing the case, but their verdict will be advisory. Judge Gonzalez Rogers will ultimately determine liability and any remedies.
Megan O’Neill, a California deputy attorney general, summarized Meta’s business model as: "hook the users, hold them, harvest their data, hide the truth."
"Meta said it prioritized safety over profits," she claimed, "but it hid the reality that when it came time to make a decision, profits won." She presented an internal study titled "Long Term Retention: The Young Ones Are The Best Ones", highlighting Meta’s focus on younger users.
"Meta found the younger a kid is when they start using the app, the better," O’Neill explained.
The most striking data came from a 2021 internal survey among 13- to 15-year-olds, revealing:
- 27% witnessed bullying
- 21% experienced negative social comparison
- 13% received unwanted sexual advances
- 12.8% saw violent content
- 8.4% encountered content about self-harm
Both sides disputed the same sentiment survey. The states emphasized the one in five teenagers who reported feeling worse after using the apps, while Meta pointed to the 41% who felt positively.
Paul Schmidt of Covington & Burling opened for Meta, conceding "no dispute"* that some users struggle while arguing the research shows no clear link between adolescent use and diminished well-being.
He highlighted Meta’s time-management tools introduced in 2018 and Teen Accounts launched in 2024. Meta shares dropped 4.4% the day of the announcement.
Arturo Bejar, a former Facebook engineering director (2009-2015) and Instagram wellbeing consultant (2019-2021), took the stand on Tuesday afternoon. He has previously testified against Meta in three trials, including high-profile cases in New Mexico and Los Angeles.
"Instagram changed from a product that you can use into a product that uses you," he told the court. "This is a company that is incredible at taking a metric and reducing it."
He cited Reels as an example of a product launched without considering safety. Bejar escalated his concerns because: "I knew that in order to have a change in how the company is dealing with harm, it had to come from Mark himself."
Bejar was still under direct examination from Jason Slothouber for the states on Wednesday, with a new exhibit being his email to Chris Cox, Meta’s chief product officer, detailing the gap between reported prevalence and user-reported harm.