Vermont Meta Instagram Lawsuit Moves Forward After Supreme Court Snub

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Meta’s appeal, allowing Vermont’s lawsuit alleging Instagram was designed to addict teens to proceed.

Meta argued Vermont courts had no jurisdiction since Instagram wasn’t designed in the state, but Vermont’s Supreme Court found the company’s targeted advertising to Vermont businesses and research on Vermont teen engagement created sufficient legal contacts. The case now enters the discovery phase, where Vermont can demand Meta’s internal documents.

Is your teen’s Instagram use being deliberately manipulated by features you don’t understand — and can states actually force tech companies to answer for it?

Meta just lost its bid to escape Vermont’s courtroom. The company spent over a year arguing that Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark couldn’t sue them in state court because Instagram’s addictive features weren’t designed in Vermont.

The Vermont Supreme Court disagreed. Meta sells targeted advertising to Vermont businesses, studies Vermont teen engagement patterns, and contracts directly with Vermont users. That’s enough legal contact to face a jury in Chittenden County.

What Vermont Claims Meta Did to Your Kids

The state’s complaint alleges Meta violated Vermont’s Consumer Protection Act through two specific practices:

• Designing Instagram to be compulsively engaging for teen users through features that maximize screen time
• Misleading parents and teens about the platform’s mental health risks while knowing the harm

The Vermont Attorney General’s office states that Meta researchers identified Vermont as a unique market and studied engagement patterns in what company researchers called Vermont’s “top 10 cities.”

Translation: They weren’t just accidentally hooking Vermont teens. They were studying how well it worked.

The Discovery Phase Could Expose Everything

With the Supreme Court appeal dead, the case returns to Chittenden Superior Court for discovery. Vermont can now demand Meta’s internal documents, emails, research studies, and executive communications about teen engagement strategies.

This matters because Meta fought jurisdiction so hard precisely to avoid this phase. Discovery in similar cases has revealed internal company research showing social media companies knew their platforms harmed teen mental health while publicly denying it.

The documents Vermont can now demand include:

• Internal research on teen engagement and addiction
• Executive emails about platform design decisions
• Studies on mental health impacts Meta conducted but didn’t publish
• Communications about targeting strategies for young users

Once again, the cover-up reveals more than the crime ever could.

Vermont Wasn’t Acting Alone

Vermont was part of a 42-state coordinated investigation of Meta before states split their filings in October 2023. Thirty-three states joined a federal lawsuit in the Northern District of California, while other states, including Vermont, filed separate actions in state court.

The Vermont case is one of dozens of state and federal actions filed nationwide accusing social media companies of harming young users.

What You Can Do

As lawsuits against social media companies continue to grow, many parents are looking for practical ways to protect their teens online and stay informed about legal efforts to hold tech platforms accountable.

While courts sort out whether companies like Meta can be held responsible for alleged harms tied to addictive design features, families can still take steps to reduce risks and advocate for transparency.

Here are steps you can take:

• Check your teen’s Instagram settings: Go to Settings > Time Management > Daily Limit to set usage restrictions. Turn off push notifications in Settings > Notifications. Review privacy settings under Settings > Privacy to limit who can contact your teen.
• Monitor the Vermont case: Track court filings at vtcourts.gov using case number 23-CV-4453. Discovery documents may become public record as the case proceeds.
• File with your state AG: Go to naag.org, click Find Your AG, select your state, and file under consumer protection > deceptive business practices if you believe social media platforms have harmed your teen.

As more states push social media companies into court, these cases could shape how platforms design apps for young users — and whether tech companies can be forced to answer for the mental health and educational impacts linked to their products.

If your child has suffered social media harm, file a claim with your state AG and then tell us about it.

Written by: Companies Behaving Badly

The team behind it all.