In what is being called a landmark decision, a jury on Wednesday found Meta and YouTube liable for harming a young user through addictive design features that significantly damaged her mental health.
The bellwether case, brought by 20-year-old K.G.M., accused the companies of developing products as addictive as cigarettes or digital casinos, according to The New York Times. TikTok and Snap were originally named as defendants but settled before the trial.
The trial, which began last month in Los Angeles County, included testimony from tech executives, including Mark Zuckerberg, as previously reported by the Deseret News. The lawsuit targeted features including infinite scrolling and algorithm recommendations.
The plaintiff, who was a minor at the time of the events described in the lawsuit, testified she began using YouTube at age 6 and Instagram at age 9. She told the jury she was on social media “all day long” as a child, The Associated Press reported.
Under Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, tech companies are generally protected from liability for content posted by third parties. Due to this, jurors were told not to consider the content of the posts and videos K.G.M. viewed, according to The Associated Press.
Meta argued the plaintiff’s mental health struggles were unconnected to her social media use, pointing to other factors in her life and noting that “not one of her therapists identified social media as the cause.” However, the plaintiffs argued they only needed to prove the platforms were a “substantial factor” in causing her harm, according to The Associated Press.
After more than 40 hours of deliberation, the jury found that Instagram and YouTube were negligently designed with addictive features. Jurors awarded the 20-year-old $3 million in compensatory damages, according to NBC News.
While her counsel originally sought $1 billion in punitive damages, the $3 million award was split between the two companies: $2.1 million from Meta and $900,000 from YouTube, The Associated Press reported.
This is the first case to hold tech companies accountable for design harms to minors. Liability was split 70% for Meta’s Instagram and 30% for Alphabet’s YouTube, according to The New York Times.
Thousands of similar lawsuits have been filed by teenagers, school districts and state attorneys general against Meta, YouTube, TikTok and Snap. More than 1,600 plaintiffs, including 350 families and over 250 school districts, have brought claims, NBC News detailed.
Matt Bergman, founding attorney of the Social Media Victims Law Center, said the decision “establishes a framework for how similar cases across the country will be evaluated and demonstrates that juries are willing to hold technology companies accountable when the evidence shows foreseeable harm.”
“Families pursuing justice in other jurisdictions can now point to this outcome as proof that these claims deserve to be heard and taken seriously,” Bergman shared in a statement.
Spokespeople for Meta and Google said the companies plan to appeal, NBC News reported.
“Teen mental health is profoundly complex and cannot be linked to a single app,” a Meta spokesperson said. “We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously as every case is different, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online.”
A Google spokesperson added that the case “misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site,” according to NBC News.
The co-lead counsel for K.G.M. released a joint statement saying the verdict is “a historic moment” for thousands of kids and families.
In a separate trial on Tuesday, a New Mexico jury found that Meta violated the state’s consumer protection laws and ordered the company to pay $375 million in civil penalties, as previously reported by Deseret News.