New York
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A California jury has found Meta and YouTube liable on all counts in a case that accused the tech giants of intentionally addicting a young woman and injuring her mental health.
Meta and YouTube were negligent in the design of their platforms, knew their design was dangerous, failed to warn of those risks and caused substantial harm to the plaintiff, the jury found.
It’s a landmark decision that could set a precedent for hundreds of similar cases claiming tech firms should be held accountable for harmful design decisions, and lead to major changes to how social media platforms operate, especially for young users.
A now 20-year-old California woman named Kaley and her mother sued Meta, Google’s YouTube, Snap and TikTok, accusing them of intentionally hooking her as a child and causing her to develop anxiety, body dysmorphia and suicidal thoughts. Snap and TikTok settled the case before trial.
The jury decision followed a seven-week trial in Los Angeles Superior Court and more than eight days of jury deliberations. They ordered the companies to pay a total of $3 million in compensatory damages; additional punitive damages could also be awarded. Meta bears 70% of the responsibility for the Kaley’s harms and YouTube 30%, jurors found.
Kaley was in the courtroom to hear the decision, along with parents of other teens who they say were harmed by social media.
A Meta spokesperson said the company would consider its options now. “We respectfully disagree with the verdict and are evaluating our legal options,” the spokesperson said
CNN has reached out to YouTube parent company Google for comment.
Meta and YouTube had denied the lawsuit’s claims and contested the idea that their platforms could be addictive. They pointed to safety features they’ve rolled out in recent years, such as parental oversight tools and teen content and privacy restrictions, that they say protect teens.
Kaley’s was the first of more than 1,500 similar cases against the social media companies to go to trial — Wednesday’s outcome won’t determine but could help guide how those other cases are resolved. Repeated losses could put the tech giants on the hook for up to billions of dollars and force them to make changes to their platforms.
The companies are also set to stand trial later this year in the first of hundreds of additional lawsuits brought by school districts and state attorneys general from around the country, in a legal push that some have compared to Big Tech’s Big Tobacco moment.
Wednesday’s decision comes one day after a New Mexico jury found Meta liable for violating the state’s consumer protection laws and failing to protect children from sexual predators.
For families and advocates who for years have called for more social media guardrails, the decision is a crucial moment of accountability. Parents who say their children were harmed or died because of social media traveled from around the United States to attend the Los Angeles trial. Many of those parents hope the decision will inspire Congress to pass more comprehensive online safety legislation.
“Social media giants would never have faced trial if they had prioritized kids’ safety over engagement,” James Steyer, founder and CEO of online safety watchdog Common Sense Media, said in a statement following the Los Angeles decision. “Instead, they buried their own research showing children were being harmed, and used kids and society as guinea pigs in massive, uncontrolled, and wildly profitable experiments. Now, executives are being held to account.”
–This is a developing story. It will be updated.
