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A Los Angeles jury has found the parent companies of YouTube and Facebook liable for a teen’s mental distress in a closely-watched trial over social media addiction.
The jury awarded $3 million to the plaintiff, a young woman identified as KGM, and her mother, according to NPR, which noted Meta would be responsible for about 70 percent of that amount and that the companies could face future penalties as well. The family had accused the platforms of willfully making their products addictive and targeting teens, despite internal research showing it could damage their mental health.
The Los Angeles Superior Court decision is among the first in a wave of hundreds of suits by schools, attorneys general, and others, making personal injury claims about major tech companies’ alleged recklessness.
A New Mexico jury recently found Meta liable on similar claims and the company was ordered to pay $375 million in damages. Meta said it would appeal that decision. Meanwhile, a case is also ongoing in a federal court based in California.
“We disagree with the verdict and plan to appeal,” José Castañeda, a Google spokesperson, said in a statement. “This case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site.” Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Online child safety advocates, meanwhile, immediately cheered the ruling.
“For too many years, kids have suffered immeasurable harm from social media, while the owners of these tech companies have reaped billions in profits,” John M. Bennett, Director of the advocacy group California Initiative for Technology and Democracy, said in a statement, calling the tech industry’s business model “fundamentally exploitative, addicting young children in order to create lifelong consumers, no matter the cost to their health or the damage to their lives.”
A bellwether
The Los Angeles trial is among the earliest in a series of suits arguing that social media products were engineered to be addictive. Tech companies have long said that they can’t be held legally responsible for the individual works that appear on their platforms, including from bad actors like scammers and terrorist groups.
But more recent cases like these have instead focused on proving that tech companies were aware of the dangers that their products could pose to young people, yet went ahead with targeting them anyway. Those dangers, according to plaintiffs, include addiction, depression, and body image problems.
The cases have already produced reams of embarrassing internal documents that plaintiffs say show how executives put profits over teens’ mental wellness.
One document, recently discussed during a hearing in a federal California case, included a 2016 email from Mark Zuckerberg about Facebook’s live videos feature. In the email, Zuckerberg wrote the company would “need to be very good about not notifying parents / teachers” about teens’ videos.
In the Los Angeles case, tech company executives, including Zuckerberg, took to the stand for questioning on their business practices. The suit initially named Snap and TikTok as defendants as well, but those companies settled the claims earlier in the trial.
If the companies continue to lose in future litigation on the same issue, they could be on the hook for billions more in damages.
More cases to come
Already, the first signs are emerging of major financial penalties for tech companies facing litigation.
In the recently decided New Mexico case, brought by the state’s attorney general, a jury found Meta liable on all counts for “unfair and deceptive” practices under New Mexico law. The Los Angeles trial decision may increase pressure on tech companies to settle future cases and to change business practices in the future.
“Today, a jury saw the truth and held Meta and Google accountable for designing products that addict and harm children,” the attorneys leading the parallel California-based federal case against the tech companies said in a statement. “Top tech executives took the stand, and their own internal documents were put before a jury, revealing that company leadership knew their platforms were hurting kids and repeatedly chose profits over children’s safety.”
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