The ruling came from Judge Carolyn Kuhl of Los Angeles Superior Court, which places this squarely in California state civil litigation, not federal court and not a regulatory proceeding. The distinction matters: this is a judge deciding that two executives must appear as witnesses, not a finding of liability, not a verdict, and not a settlement. Meta had moved to quash the subpoenas — a procedural attempt to block compelled testimony — and Judge Kuhl rejected that motion.
What a denied motion to quash establishes is limited but concrete: the court found insufficient legal basis to shield Zuckerberg and Mosseri from appearing. It does not establish that Meta's platforms caused addiction, that the executives behaved unlawfully, or that plaintiffs will prevail. The trial itself is scheduled for October 28.
The mechanism that makes this consequential is deposition-under-oath exposure at the highest level of the company. Executives who testify in one trial can find that testimony surfacing in the next one. Meta faces social media addiction litigation across multiple jurisdictions, which means Judge Kuhl's ruling on a single subpoena dispute has a compounding effect that the four corners of her order do not capture.
The open question is what, if anything, Zuckerberg and Mosseri say that they have not said before — and whether a California jury gets to weigh it.
Elena Vella 
Marcus Azzopardi 
Dua Mifsud