New York (CNN) — A California jury has found Meta and YouTube liable on all counts in a landmark 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.
The decision could set a precedent for hundreds of similar cases and lead to major changes to how social media platforms operate, especially for young users — as well as millions, even billions, in losses for the tech companies.
The case also marks a watershed moment for social media, following years of concerns from parents, advocates and lawmakers about online harms to children ranging from mental health concerns to sexual exploitation.
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 deliberated for more than eight days after a seven-week trial in Los Angeles Superior Court. They ordered the companies to pay a total of $3 million in compensatory damages.
The jurors also recommended YouTube pay an additional $900,000 in punitive damages, according to a Google spokesperson. The jury recommended $2.1 million in punitive damages from Meta, according to Reuters.
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 will appeal,” the spokesperson said. “Teen mental health is profoundly complex and cannot be linked to a single app. We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously as every case is different, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online.”
Google said they would apeal the verdict.
“We disagree with the verdict and plan to appeal,” José Castañeda, a Google spokesperson, said in a statement. “This case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site.”
Hundreds more lawsuits
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 change 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.
A potential turning point for social media
The decision is a crucial moment of accountability for families and advocates who for years have called for more social media guardrails. 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.”
Kaley — who was referred to by only her first name because her claims relate to incidents that took place while she was a minor — described in court how her addiction continues to disrupt her adult life, making her feel compelled to sneak out of work to scroll and spend long hours trying to manipulate her appearance using filters on the apps.
Meta had claimed that it was Kaley’s difficult childhood, not social media, that caused her mental health challenges. But Kaley’s lawyer, Mark Lanier, argued that those challenges simply raised the stakes for the companies to protect children.
YouTube had said that records from Kaley’s account showed she used the platform for only a short time each day, which they said contradicted her claims of addiction. But Lanier said that, like many kids, Kaley often used the platform while not logged into her account.
The trial saw testimony from top executives at the companies, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Instagram head Adam Mosseri and YouTube Vice President of Engineering Cristos Goodrow. Mosseri testified that he believes social media use can be “problematic” but not “clinically addictive;” Goodrow testified that his own children use YouTube for hours each day and he believes it’s “good” for them.
Internal documents presented in court shed light on the companies’ efforts to attract young users, as well as what they knew about the potential risks to their platforms. Meta documents, for example, showed how the company decided to allow “beauty” filters that manipulate a user’s appearance despite employees and 18 experts raising concerns that they could be harmful.
–CNN’s Samantha Delouya, Lisa Eadicicco and Brian Stelter contributed to this story. Additional reporting from Reuters.
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