{"id":900335,"date":"2026-04-19T16:23:33","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T21:23:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/19\/jury-finds-instagram-and-youtube-liable-in-landmark-social-media-addiction-trial\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T16:23:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T21:23:33","slug":"jury-finds-instagram-and-youtube-liable-in-landmark-social-media-addiction-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/19\/jury-finds-instagram-and-youtube-liable-in-landmark-social-media-addiction-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"Jury finds Instagram and YouTube liable in landmark social media addiction trial"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\tSkip to Main Content\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/header>\n

\t\t

<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTechnology\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

After more than 40 hours of deliberation across nine days, California jurors decided Meta and YouTube were negligent in the design or operation of their platforms.<\/h2>\n
\n\"Laura
\n\tLaura Marquez-Garrett, attorney for SMVLC (Social Media Victims Law Center), embraces Julianna Arnold, right, parent, outside Los Angeles Superior Court on Thursday, March 12, 2026. AP Photo\/Damian Dovarganes<\/em>\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBy KAITLYN HUAMANI and BARBARA ORTUTAY, Associated Press\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

3 minutes to read<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n
\n

Share<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Share<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n

Send this article to your social connections.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/header>\n

\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 A jury found both Meta and YouTube liable in a\u00a0first-of-its-kind lawsuit\u00a0that aimed to hold social media platforms responsible for harm to children using their services, awarding the plaintiff $3 million in damages.<\/p>\n

After more than 40 hours of deliberation across nine days, California jurors decided Meta and YouTube were negligent in the design or operation of their platforms. The jury also decided each company\u2019s negligence was a substantial factor in causing harm to the\u00a0plaintiff, a 20-year-old woman\u00a0who says her use of social media as a child addicted her to the technology and exacerbated her mental health struggles.<\/p>\n

<\/body><\/p>\n

The multimillion-dollar verdict will grow, as the jury decided the companies acted with malice, or highly egregious conduct, meaning they will hear new evidence shortly and head back into the deliberation room to decide on punitive damages.<\/p>\n

Meta and Google-owned YouTube were the two remaining defendants in the case after\u00a0TikTok and Snap each settled\u00a0before the trial began.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe respectfully disagree with the verdict and are evaluating our legal options,\u201d Meta said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Jurors listened to about a month of lawyers\u2019 arguments, testimony and evidence, and they heard from the plaintiff herself, identified as KGM in documents, or Kaley as her lawyers have called her during the trial, as well as Meta leaders\u00a0Mark Zuckerberg\u00a0and\u00a0Adam Mosseri. YouTube\u2019s CEO, Neal Mohan, was not called in to testify.<\/p>\n

<\/body><\/p>\n

Kaley says she began using YouTube at age 6 and Instagram at age 9 and told the jury she was\u00a0on social media \u201call day long\u201d\u00a0as a child.<\/p>\n

Lawyers representing Kaley, led by Mark Lanier, were tasked with proving that the respective defendants\u2019 negligence was a substantial factor in causing Kaley\u2019s harm. They pointed to specific design features they said were designed to \u201chook\u201d young users, like the \u201cinfinite\u201d nature of feeds that allowed for an endless supply of content, autoplay features, and even notifications.<\/p>\n

The jurors were told not to take into account the content of the posts and videos that Kaley saw on the platforms. That\u2019s because tech companies are shielded from legal responsibility for content posted on their sites thanks to\u00a0Section 230\u00a0of the 1996 Communications Decency Act.<\/p>\n

Meta consistently argued that Kaley had struggled with her mental health separate from her social media use, often pointing to her turbulent home life. Meta also said \u201cnot one of her therapists identified social media as the cause\u201d of her mental health issues in a statement following closing arguments. But the plaintiffs did not have to prove that social media caused Kaley\u2019s struggles \u2014 only that it was a \u201csubstantial factor\u201d in causing her harm.<\/p>\n

<\/body><\/p>\n

YouTube focused less on Kaley\u2019s medical records and mental health history and more on her use of YouTube and the nature of the platform. They argued that YouTube is not a form of social media, but rather a video platform akin to television, and pointed to her declining YouTube use as she got older. According to their data, she spent about one minute a day on average watching YouTube Shorts since its inception. YouTube Shorts, which launched in 2020, is the platform\u2019s section of short-form, vertical videos that have the \u201cinfinite scroll\u201d feature the plaintiffs argued was addictive.<\/p>\n

Lawyers representing both platforms also consistently pointed to the safety features and guardrails they each have available for people to monitor and customize their use.<\/p>\n

The case, along with several others, has been randomly selected as a bellwether trial, meaning its outcome could impact how thousands of similar lawsuits filed against social media companies play out.<\/p>\n

Laura Marquez-Garrett, an attorney with the Social Media Victims Law Center and the counsel of record for Kaley, said this trial was \u201ca vehicle, not an outcome\u201d during deliberations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis case is historic no matter what happens because it was the first,\u201d Marquez-Garrett said, emphasizing the gravity of getting Meta and Google\u2019s internal documents into the public record.<\/p>\n

<\/body><\/p>\n

Marquez-Garrett said social media companies are \u201cnot taking the cancerous talcum powder off the shelves,\u201d likely in reference to a past case that Lanier and his firm worked on, securing a multi-billion-dollar verdict. \u201cAnd they\u2019re not going to because they\u2019re making too much money killing kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, the Social Media Victims Law Center and the parents who trace their children\u2019s deaths or harms back to social media will continue to keep fighting, Marquez-Garrett said, wearing several rubber wristbands in honor of victims that have not come off since the trial began.<\/p>\n

The trial was one of several that\u00a0social media companies face\u00a0this year and beyond. They are the culmination of years of scrutiny of the platforms over child safety, and whether the companies make them addictive and serve up content that leads to depression, eating disorders or suicide.<\/p>\n

Some experts see the reckoning as reminiscent of cases against tobacco and\u00a0opioid markets, and the plaintiffs hope that social media platforms will see similar outcomes as cigarette makers and drug companies, pharmacies and distributors.<\/p>\n

\n

Extra News Alerts<\/h3>\n

Get breaking updates as they happen.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/body><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\"Image\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t\tTo comment, please create a screen name in
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\tyour profile\t\t\t\t<\/a>
\n\t\t\t<\/h4>\n<\/p>\n

Conversation<\/h3>\n

This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com<\/h5>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n
\n
\n

\n\t\t\tMost Popular\t\t<\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

\t<\/main><\/p><\/div>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Skip to Main Content Technology After more than 40 hours of deliberation across nine days, California jurors decided Meta and YouTube were negligent in the design or operation of their platforms. Laura Marquez-Garrett, attorney for SMVLC (Social Media Victims Law Center), embraces Julianna Arnold, right, parent, outside Los Angeles Superior Court on Thursday, March 12, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":900336,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2915,434,104640],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-900335","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-finds","8":"category-instagram","9":"category-youtube-videos"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=900335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/900336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}