- Meta, YouTube trial could redefine social media liability for addictive algorithms.
- Plaintiff claims social media is designed to trap children, leading to poor mental health.
- Potentially billions of dollars are at stake as other lawsuits line up behind this one.
Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified in a test-balloon lawsuit that says social media platforms harm children and were designed to be addictive. While Snap and TikTok have settled for undisclosed terms, the trial involving Meta and YouTube is expected to last six to eight weeks.
Wednesday, Zuckerberg said his company has not tried to make Instagram addictive for youths.
NBC News, which is covering the trial, reported: “I’m focused on building a community that is sustainable,” the Meta CEO said. “If you do something that’s not good for people, maybe they’ll spend more time short term, but if they’re not happy with it, they’re not going to use it over time. I’m not trying to maximize the amount of time people spend every month.”
He acknowledged it’s likely there are children younger than the 13 years of age and older allowed in Meta’s policies who do use the platforms, calling them kids “who lie about their age in order to use the service.” Zuckerberg said Meta is trying to find underage users and remove them from its platforms.
The trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court started with opening statements at the Spring Street Courthouse this week. The case involves a female, now 20 and identified only as KGM, who maintains she became addicted to social media at a young age and has been, at times, depressed and even suicidal as a result. The lawsuit alleges that KGM experienced harassment and other ills as a result of her social media addiction.
The question is whether social media platforms are “defective products” that were deliberately built to take advantage of how vulnerable young people are.
According to PBS, her attorney, Mark Lanier, called the case “as easy as ABC,” which he said stands for “addicting the brains of children.”
The trial, which is expected to be the first of many if it goes well for the plaintiff, centers on the claim that the addictive quality of social media results from deliberate design choices the platforms have made to keep children enthralled and online.
The outcome of this case is expected to influence potential settlements in other cases, with potentially billions of dollars in play.
Is social media addictive?
Social media companies have enjoyed First Amendment protection so that they are not held responsible for what others post on their platforms. And Section 230 protection can be skirted if a product is deemed “defective.” If the lawsuit results in a finding that the companies designed their platforms to be addictive and resulted in harm, those companies could be held liable regardless of the protections they’ve been afforded.
Per PBS, “Lanier said that despite the public position of Meta and YouTube being that they work to protect children and implement safeguards for their use of the platforms, their internal documents show an entirely different position, with explicit references to young children being listed as their target audiences.”
NPR reported that plaintiffs’ lawyers “point to internal documents at the companies stressing the goal of making social media apps difficult to put down through features like infinite scroll, auto-play, likes, beauty filters and push notifications.”
“These companies built machines designed to addict the brains of children,” Lanier said in his opening remarks. “And they did it on purpose.”
The social media companies have refuted such claims, noting the array of safeguards they have added over time to give parents more control of their minor children’s activities online, such as the ability to block messages from strangers.
A Meta spokesman told the Associated Press that the company is “confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people.”
In a statement, Meta said, “For over a decade, we’ve listened to parents, worked with experts and law enforcement, and conducted in-depth research to understand the issues that matter most. We use these insights to make meaningful changes — like introducing Teen Accounts with built-in protections and providing parents with tools to manage their teens’ experiences.”
Poll: Is social media good or bad for society?
A new Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll shows that Utahns and U.S. adults both have mixed feelings about social media. The poll, conducted by Morning Consult Feb. 10-13, asked 2,002 registered U.S. voters: “Do you think social media is good or bad for society?”
More responded that social media is bad than said it’s good, both in Utah and nationally. But nearly half deemed social media “neither good nor bad,” at 48%. Among Utahns, 15% said good, compared to 19% nationally. More than a third of Utahns (34%) deemed social media bad for society, compared to 30% nationally. Just 3% in both groups said they don’t know.
The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points for the national data and 4 percentage points for the Utah subset of 769 registered voters.
Utah and other states have taken action to limit access to smartphones during the school day and a measure now before the Legislature would prohibit the use of smartphones and thus social media “bell to bell.” Gov. Spencer Cox has been vocal in favoring such a measure.
Utah also passed an age-verification law to ensure those using social media have parental permission if they’re minors. A different law barred use by social media companies of algorithms or features that are addictive, creating a pathway to sue.
In November, the latest edition of the American Family Survey — a joint project of Deseret News with Brigham Young University’s Wheatley Institute and its Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy — found that U.S. parents with minor children at home believe that social media is more negative than positive, 38% vs. 19%.
“The survey found that, when it comes to minors, significant majorities of Americans support government regulation of technology. Eight in 10 say social media companies should be required to disclose how they rank or promote content to minors, and a similar proportion say parental consent should be required to download a social media app,” per the Deseret News.
But the survey also found that more parents put screen time restrictions (58%) than content restrictions (56%), contact restrictions (38%), private messaging restrictions (38%) and private account (34%) on their kids’ phones. Just 1 in 5 placed no type of restriction on social media.
And parents were clear they don’t want smartphones distracting kids in class.
The issue has been on the national radar for a long time. And in late 2024, then U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy pushed to have social media platforms include a parental advisory warning that using sites could hurt the mental health of adolescents. The warning, he said, would remind young and old users alike that “social media has not been proved safe,” as Deseret News reported.
Deseret News separately reported on a study that found young children’s screen time lowers their academic scores even years later. The study was published in JAMA Network Open.
More social media lawsuits
PBS noted a “slew of cases beginning this year” that challenge social media companies over harm to the mental health of youths.
Another trial is taking place in New Mexico, alleging Meta has not protected children from sexual exploitation.
A separate federal trial starting in June in Oakland was filed by school districts over perceived harm to children.
And at least 40 state attorneys general have filed lawsuits alleging Meta has played a key role in the youth mental health crisis through the addictive features on Instagram and Facebook.
TikTok is also facing similar lawsuits in a number of states.
Entire countries are tackling the issue in their own way. France has banned social media for kids younger than 15 and other European nations are considering similar bans.
Australia bans use of social media platforms for those younger than 16.
And PBS said the British government is considering similar bans.
Meanwhile, law firms are also signing up clients. For instance, Salinger, Sack, Kimmel and Bavarro are recruiting families where a child “became addicted to social media before age 18″ and is younger than 26 now. Among the mental or physical health injuries they list as a consequence of social media are “eating disorders, body dysmorphia, depression or anxiety, self-harm, suicide attempt, suicide, sleep deprivation and severe mood disorders.”
The company says its mass tort attorneys are representing clients with claims against Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, Discord and Reddit.
Miller & Zois is recruiting, too. Of the ongoing California trial, the law firm writes: “This trial is the first ‘test flight’ for thousands of similar cases, and its outcome will shape everything that follows. If jurors accept the addiction-machine theory, settlement pressure across the entire litigation increases dramatically. If not, the road gets harder. Think of this bellwether like cracking open a sealed black box. For years, families suspected what was inside. Now, a jury can see the wiring, the internal emails, and the design choices, and decide whether these platforms were neutral tools or intentionally addictive systems built at children’s expense.”
Per NPR, “There’s a lot at stake for the tech companies, since this is considered a test case, potentially shaping the outcome of some 1,600 other pending social media addiction cases that have been consolidated from parents of children and school districts.”