YouTube and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, were both found liable Wednesday in a landmark lawsuit accusing the social media companies of using addictive practices that allegedly hooked children on the sites and contributed to mental health and other harms.
The jury awarded a total of $3 million in damages, with Meta directed to pay 70% of that amount, and YouTube 30%.
The verdict came at start of the jury’s ninth day of deliberations in downtown Los Angeles. The case was being closely watched as a possible indicator of the fate of thousands of similar lawsuits that are still pending.
The lawsuit involved a plaintiff known only as K.G.M., who testified during the trial that she began using social media sites when she was as young as 6 years old.
Plaintiff’s attorney Mark Lanier argued that his young client, who had uploaded hundreds of videos before she was even a teenager, became vulnerable to the Meta and YouTube platforms. He referred to the social media companies as “behemoths,” and compared them to a lion stalking a pack of vulnerable gazelles. The advantages of the lion, Lanier told the Los Angeles Superior Court jury, is a legitimate comparison to what Meta and YouTube did to K.G.M., a Chico resident who is now 20 years old.
Referring to what he called “engineered addiction,” Lanier also equated the content of the platforms to a Trojan horse, saying users are drawn in by the content’s “wonderful and great” appearance, but find themselves taken over by the reels on their devices.
TikTok and Snap were originally defendants in the lawsuit, but both reached settlements before the trial began in the courtroom of Judge Carolyn Barbara Kuhl. Hundreds of similar lawsuits are still pending, with this initial trial being closely watched by industry experts.
The social media companies strongly denied all allegations in K.G.M.’s lawsuit and maintained they are committed to the well-being of their young users. Attorneys have questioned the concept of social media being an addiction, and suggested that other factors in K.G.M’s life — including alleged verbal and physical abuse by her parents — led to her mental health struggles.
On Tuesday, a jury in New Mexico found that Meta’s social media platforms were harmful to children, in violation of state statutes, and ordered the company to pay $375 million. Meta officials quickly said they plan to appeal.