A Los Angeles jury has found Meta and YouTube negligent in the design and operation of their social media platforms, delivering a landmark verdict in the first lawsuit to bring tech giants to trial over social media addiction in children.
The verdict was reached Wednesday (March 25) at the Spring Street Courthouse in Los Angeles, capping a trial that lasted roughly a month and included testimony from addiction experts, therapists, platform engineers, and tech executives — including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
The case was brought by a 20-year-old California woman, identified in court documents as Kaley G.M., who testified that she began using YouTube at age six and Instagram at age nine, despite the platforms’ age restrictions. She told jurors that features like autoplay, infinite scroll, and push notifications kept her glued to the apps for hours, often late into the night. Kaley said the platforms fueled her depression and suicidal thoughts throughout her childhood.
The trial was designated a “bellwether” proceeding, meaning its outcome could set a precedent for thousands of similar lawsuits against social media companies across the United States. TikTok and Snap were also named as defendants in the original lawsuit but settled before the trial began.
Jurors found that both Meta and YouTube were negligent and that their platforms were a “substantial factor” in causing harm to Kaley. They awarded her $3 million in damages, finding Meta responsible for 70% and YouTube responsible for the 30%.
Plaintiff’s attorney Mark Lanier framed the case as one of corporate exploitation of vulnerable young users. During closing arguments, he asked jurors to consider a central question: “What is a lost childhood worth?”
Meta argued throughout the trial that Kaley faced significant personal and family challenges before she ever used social media. In a statement, a Meta spokesperson said the jury’s only task was to “decide if those struggles would have existed without Instagram,” adding that “not one of her therapists identified social media as the cause.” YouTube, meanwhile, consistently maintained that it is not a social media platform and that its features are not addictive, drawing comparisons to television.
Separately, a New Mexico jury recently hit Meta with a $375 million verdict after finding the company misled users about platform safety and failed to stop child exploitation on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. That verdict was the first jury finding against Meta tied specifically to child safety and platform design.
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