Social media giants Meta and YouTube deliberately designed “addictive products” that eventually caused harm to a young woman, a Los Angeles court ruled on Wednesday. The jury found that neither company sufficiently warned users about the possible risks associated with their products, The Guardian reported.
Both companies were directed to collectively pay a fine of $6 million.
What’s the case?
A 20-year-old woman, identified as KGM, sued social media companies such as Meta, TikTok, YouTube and Snap, alleging that she became addicted to their platforms from a young age, which affected her wellbeing. In her testimony, she said she got addicted to YouTube at age six and Instagram at nine.
How Meta, YouTube made KGM a social media ‘addict’?
The woman argued that both platforms deployed features intended to drive addiction, such as infinite scrolling feeds, algorithm-led recommendations and autoplay videos. Her lawyer further linked the services to addictive products such as cigarettes or digital casinos.
“How do you make a child never put down the phone? That’s called the engineering of addiction. They engineered it, they put these features on the phones,” KGM’s lawyer said in court.
What did the jury say?
After six weeks of testimony from company executives, addiction experts and the plaintiff, the 12-member jury returned a 10–2 verdict in KGM’s favour. It found that the companies were negligent in their platform design, failing to adequately warn users, which acted as a substantial factor in causing harm.
“A jury heard the evidence, heard what Meta and YouTube knew and when they knew it, and held them accountable for their conduct,” KGM’s lawyer said in a statement after the verdict.
This was the first case to go to trial among more than 1,600 lawsuits filed against social media platforms over alleged harm to young users. TikTok and Snap settled the KGM case before trial, according to The Guardian.
What did Meta and YouTube say?
Meta and YouTube both said they disagree with the verdict and plan to appeal against it. According to Meta, teen mental health is profoundly complex and “cannot be linked to a single app”. Meanwhile, YouTube said that the allegations were “simply not true”.
“This case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site,” the company added.
The verdict came a day after a New Mexico jury, in a separate case, found that Meta misled teens about keeping them safe from sexual exploitation. The court ordered it to pay $375m in civil penalties. The company, however, disagreed with the verdict and said that it will appeal against it.
Why it matters
The verdict comes amid growing concern over social media addiction among children, with some countries imposing age restrictions on its use and others considering similar measures.
Australia became the first country to ban social media use for those under 16 on health and safety grounds, while several European countries are also moving to take similar steps.
Earlier this month, the Karnataka government proposed banning social media use for children below 16 years of age, becoming the first Indian state to take concrete steps to implement the plan. Andhra Pradesh too announced its intention to introduce curbs on social media use for those under 13.
Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw also said last month that the Centre was in talks with social media platforms and internet intermediaries to impose a complete age-based ban on children below a certain age from using social media.
