A Los Angeles jury has found Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta and Google’s YouTube liable in a groundbreaking lawsuit concerning harm to children using their platforms, awarding $3 million in damages to a young woman who claims social media addiction during childhood worsened her mental health.
NBC News reports that in a precedent-setting verdict, jurors in the high profile social media addiction trial deliberated for more than 40 hours across nine days before determining that both Meta and YouTube were negligent in the design and operation of their platforms. The jury concluded that each company’s negligence was a substantial factor in causing harm to the plaintiff, a 20-year-old woman who testified that her childhood use of social media created an addiction to the technology and aggravated her mental health problems.
The multimillion-dollar award is expected to increase significantly, as jurors determined that the companies acted with malice or highly egregious conduct. This finding means the jury will soon hear additional evidence and return to deliberations to decide on punitive damages, which could substantially raise the total compensation.
Meta and Google-owned YouTube were the final two defendants remaining in the case after TikTok and Snap reached settlements before the trial commenced. The plaintiff, identified in court documents as KGM and referred to as Kaley by her legal team during proceedings, provided testimony alongside high-profile technology executives. Meta leaders Mark Zuckerberg and Adam Mosseri appeared as witnesses, while YouTube CEO Neal Mohan was not called to testify.
According to her testimony, Kaley started using YouTube when she was six years old and began using Instagram at age nine. She told jurors that she spent time on social media platforms all day long throughout her childhood. The legal team representing Kaley, headed by attorney Mark Lanier, was responsible for demonstrating that the negligence of the respective defendants was a substantial factor in causing harm to their client.
The plaintiffs’ attorneys highlighted specific design elements they argued were intentionally created to hook young users. These features included the infinite nature of content feeds that provided an endless supply of material, autoplay functions, and notification systems. The jury received instructions not to consider the actual content of posts and videos that Kaley viewed on the platforms. This restriction exists because technology companies are protected from legal liability for content posted on their sites under Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act.
Throughout the trial, Meta consistently maintained that Kaley had experienced mental health difficulties independent of her social media usage, frequently referencing her unstable home environment. In a statement released after closing arguments, Meta emphasized that not one of her therapists identified social media as the cause of her mental health issues. However, the plaintiffs were not required to prove that social media directly caused Kaley’s struggles, only that it was a substantial factor contributing to her harm.
YouTube adopted a different defense strategy, concentrating less on Kaley’s medical records and mental health history and focusing more on her YouTube usage patterns and the nature of their platform. They contended that YouTube is not social media but rather a video platform similar to television, and they pointed to evidence showing her decreasing YouTube use as she matured. According to data presented by YouTube, Kaley spent approximately one minute per day on average watching YouTube Shorts since the feature’s introduction. YouTube Shorts, which launched in 2020, is the platform’s section dedicated to short-form, vertical videos that incorporates the infinite scroll feature that plaintiffs argued was addictive.
Legal representatives for both platforms repeatedly emphasized the safety features and protective measures they each provide for users to monitor and customize their platform usage.
Laura Marquez-Garrett, an attorney with the Social Media Victims Law Center and the counsel of record for Kaley, described this trial as a vehicle, not an outcome during the deliberation period. Marquez-Garrett stated that this case is historic regardless of the verdict because it was the first of its kind, emphasizing the importance of bringing Meta and Google’s internal documents into the public record.
A Meta spokesperson told Breitbart News, “We respectfully disagree with the verdict and will appeal. Teen mental health is profoundly complex and cannot be linked to a single app. We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously as every case is different, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online.”
Yesterday, a jury in New Mexico ruled that Meta failed to protect children from grooming and exploitation, ordering $375 million in damages.
Read more at NBC News here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.