A Los Angeles County jury on Wednesday found Meta and YouTube liable in a social media addition case. File Photo by Adam Vaughn/EPA
March 26 (UPI) — A California jury has found Meta and YouTube liable for negligently designing addictive social media platforms that harm children, in a landmark verdict that could have lasting implications for the tech industry.
The Wednesday verdict marks the first time technology companies have been found liable for creating addictive online products, amid increased scrutiny of the industry and a wave of litigation.
“This jury saw exactly what we presented from the very first day of trial: that these companies built digital spaces designed to negatively influence the brains of children, and they did it on purpose,” Mark Lanier, lead trial counsel and founder of The Lanier Law Firm, said in a statement.
“The evidence showed that Meta and YouTube knew their platforms were hooking children and harming their mental health, and instead of fixing the problem they kept developing features to maximize the time kids spent on their apps. Now a jury has told them that is not acceptable, and you are being held accountable.”
UPI has contacted Meta and YouTube for comment.
The verdict follows a seven-week trial centered on a now-20-year-old plaintiff known to the court by her initials K.G.M., who testified that her use of Instagram, owned by Meta, and YouTube, an Alphabet product, from a young age caused her to develop anxiety, depression, body dysmorphia and suicidal thoughts.
During the trial, she testified that the platforms’ addictive design features, including algorithm-generated recommendations, beauty features and push notifications caused her severe mental harm.
“[The plaintiff] put a human face on what these companies have known for years: that their platforms were engineered to hook young users, and that the children most vulnerable to trauma were the ones they were most effectively reaching,” Rachel Lanier, co-lead counsel and managing attorney of The Lanier Law Firm’s Los Angeles office, said in a statement.
In its verdict, the jury found Meta 70% responsible for the harm the plaintiff suffered and YouTube 30% responsible, and ordered the Mark Zuckerberg-owned tech behemoth and Google‘s video-sharing service to pay her a combined $6 million, half for compensatory damages and half for punitive damages.
Of the punitive damages, Meta is to pay $2.1 million and YouTube $900,000.
This was the first trial in a much larger consolidated case involving more than 1,600 plaintiffs seeking to hold social media companies responsible for the harm they suffered from using those products.
“This is a major victory for the public, for social media users and for child safety,” Libby Liu, CEO of nonprofit legal organization Whistleblower Aid, told UPI in an emailed statement.
“Each successful lawsuit paints a crystal clear picture showing that Meta is not above the law and can and should be held accountable.”
The verdict came down a day after a New Mexico jury found Meta liable for misleading consumers about the safety of its products, ordering the company to pay $375 million in civil penalties for violating the state’s consumer protection laws.
During the trial, state prosecutors showed that Meta’s design features enabled predators to engage in child sexual exploitation, while demonstrating that Meta intentionally designed its platforms to addict young people.
Following the verdict in Los Angeles County, New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez, a Democrat, celebrated it as “another critical step toward justice that puts Meta and other big tech executives on notice that they cannot evade responsibility for design choices that jeopardize child safety.”
“We will seek court-mandated changes to Meta’s platforms that offer protections for kids,” he said in a statement.
The rulings come as more attention is being paid to the effects social media has on youth, resulting with Australia in December banning those under the age of 16 from social media, while other countries are considering similar restrictions.