A California jury has found Meta and YouTube liable for negligence in a first-of-its-kind trial, awarding $3 million in damages to a young woman who claims the platforms’ designs hooked her as a child and devastated her mental health.
After nine days and more than 40 hours of deliberation, the jury concluded that both companies were negligent in how they designed or operated their services. Jurors determined this negligence was a “substantial factor” in the harm caused to the plaintiff, a 20-year-old identified in court documents as KGM, or “Kaley.”
The legal victory for the plaintiff is expected to grow. Because the jury found the companies acted with “malice” or “highly egregious conduct,” the trial will now move into a second phase to determine punitive damages.
The case against Meta and Google-owned YouTube proceeded after fellow defendants TikTok and Snap reached settlements before the trial began. Over the course of a month, jurors reviewed internal documents and heard testimony from Kaley, as well as high-ranking executives including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram head Adam Mosseri.
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Kaley testified that her use of the platforms began at a very young age—YouTube at 6 and Instagram at 9—leading her to be on social media “all day long.” Her legal team, led by attorney Mark Lanier, argued that specific features like infinite scrolling feeds, autoplay, and constant notifications were intentionally designed to “hook” children.
Under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, tech firms are generally shielded from liability regarding the content users post. Consequently, the judge instructed jurors to ignore the specific posts Kaley viewed and focus solely on whether the platforms’ underlying architecture was defective or negligent.
Throughout the trial, Meta argued that Kaley’s mental health struggles were tied to a “turbulent home life” rather than app usage, noting that none of her past therapists had identified social media as the primary cause of her issues. YouTube’s defense characterized the site as a video platform similar to television rather than traditional social media, pointing to data showing Kaley’s usage of “Shorts”—the platform’s infinite-scroll feature—averaged only about one minute per day. Both companies also highlighted existing parental controls and safety tools as evidence of responsible operation.
This trial serves as a “bellwether,” meaning the verdict could set a precedent for thousands of similar lawsuits currently pending against social media giants.
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“This case is historic no matter what happens because it was the first,” said Laura Marquez-Garrett, an attorney with the Social Media Victims Law Center. She compared the industry’s refusal to change its design to past corporate scandals, stating that the companies are “not taking the cancerous talcum powder off the shelves… because they’re making too much money.”
The verdict comes amid a wave of litigation and increasing government scrutiny over whether social media platforms contribute to depression, eating disorders, and suicide among minors. Some legal experts suggest the industry is facing a legal reckoning similar to those seen by big tobacco and opioid manufacturers in previous decades.
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