A jury in Los Angeles found Google and Meta liable for a woman’s social media addiction in a landmark social media lawsuit.
The jury found that Instagram, which is owned by Meta, and YouTube, which is owned by Google, were responsible for harm caused to the anonymous plaintiff – awarding her $3 million in damages.
It’s seen as a bellweather decision that will inform thousands more cases against social media firms for creating addictive algorithms. Meta said it “respectfully disagrees” with the verdict, while Google said: “We disagree with the verdict and plan to appeal.”
After more than 40 hours of deliberation across nine days, California jurors decided Meta and YouTube were negligent in the design or operation of their platforms.
The jury also decided each company’s negligence was a substantial factor in causing harm to the plaintiff.
The multimillion-dollar verdict will grow, as the jury decided the companies acted with malice, or highly egregious conduct, meaning they will hear new evidence shortly and head back into the deliberation room to decide on more damages – known as punitive damages.
The trial, which lasted around a month and ended on Wednesday when the verdict was delivered, centred around arguments that Instagram and YouTube (and TikTok and Snapchat but they settled out of court) were built to be addictive and were therefore harmful.
It focused on the case of KGM, or Kaley, as she was called in court, a now 20-year-old Californian who says she developed a number of mental health issues after using social media from a young age.
“How do you make a child never put down the phone? That’s called the engineering of addiction,” her lawyer, Mark Lanier, told the jury.
“They engineered it, they put these features on the phones. These are Trojan horses: They look wonderful and great…but you invite…
