A county within the US state of California has turn out to be the newest litigant towards Meta Platforms, the sprawling multinational company that operates Fb, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Threads.
The lawsuit filed earlier this week by Santa Clara County alleges that Meta knowingly earnings from rip-off promoting, which it says generated $7bn in annual income.
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It’s the newest US lawsuit to problem the social media firm’s ethics, following a landmark ruling in March that discovered the corporate harmed younger customers with deliberately addictive design options.
Meta, which made greater than $200bn in income in 2025, has additionally confronted a separate lawsuit filed by the Shopper Federation of America, which stated its strategy in direction of scammers violates client safety legal guidelines.
What does the lawsuit allege?
The lawsuit alleges that Meta each “facilitates and monetises” deception in the way it moderates its commercials, in response to Santa Clara County.
Removed from rip-off commercials being blocked, possible offenders are merely flagged by Meta’s system. Meta solely banned entrepreneurs it was 95 % sure have been commiting fraud, in response to Meta’s inside paperwork. Suspected scammers beneath that threshold are then charged a premium payment to proceed operating the commercials, in response to a 2025 investigation by the information company Reuters.
The lawsuit says that Meta’s refined synthetic intelligence and programme instruments actively goal “susceptible customers”.
The scams embrace “fraudulent monetary merchandise, cryptocurrency schemes, purported cures for incurable ailments, ineffective dietary dietary supplements, and impersonations of celebrities asking for financial contributions”.
“Behind each one of many billions of rip-off advertisements Meta runs every day, there are actual folks in danger. Too usually, it’s probably the most susceptible individuals who endure the harshest impacts,” Santa Clara County Counsel Tony LoPresti stated in a press release.
The county added that California residents reported greater than $2.5bn in losses to scammers in 2024, with senior residents hit disproportionately onerous.
In a press release to Reuters earlier this week, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone stated the lawsuit “distorts our motives and ignores the total vary of actions we take to fight scams day by day”.
“We aggressively struggle scams on and off our platforms as a result of they’re not good for us or the folks and companies that depend on our providers,” Stone stated.
The corporate has stated it eliminated 159 million rip-off commercials final yr and has partnered with regulation enforcement businesses.
Why is Santa Clara launching the lawsuit?
Santa Clara County is likely one of the wealthiest on this planet. It comprises giant parts of Silicon Valley, a worldwide expertise hub and residential to a number of main firms.
The lawsuit is filed on behalf of all California residents, with the grievance stating that Meta’s “principal place of work is in California” and that the corporate’s leaders “commonly have interaction in enterprise in California and, particularly, in Santa Clara County”.
“As civil prosecutors in Silicon Valley,” LoPresti stated in a press release, “we can’t enable a tech firm as highly effective as Meta to proceed perpetrating a worldwide scheme to deceive customers.”
Meta and the businesses it owns have confronted 1000’s of lawsuits since its founding in 2004, then named TheFacebook, Inc. The overwhelming majority have associated to its moderation practices, privateness, and potential hurt to youngsters.
However a latest California ruling towards the corporate has been seen as a probably landmark shift in how it’s held liable.
A jury in California in March discovered that the corporate, alongside YouTube, had deployed options that have been addictive and harmed the psychological well being of a younger litigant, recognized as 20-year-old KGM.
Whereas the corporate was ordered to pay simply $4.2m in damages, the ruling was largely seen as a bellwether for future and ongoing challenges. Notably, the jury sided with the argument that social media websites could cause private harm and be held accountable for it.
Individually that month, a jury in New Mexico dominated that Meta had violated the state’s regulation by failing to guard youngsters from predators.
Final week, the Shopper Federation of America, a nonprofit, filed a lawsuit in Washington, DC, additionally claiming that Meta has not lived as much as its guarantees to guard towards scammers, prioritising earnings over customers. Meta has additionally rejected the claims.
