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from Colin LetcherCalMatters
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A Los Angeles jury has found the parent companies of YouTube and Facebook liable for the mental distress of a teenager in a closely watched social media addiction trial.
The jury awarded $3 million to the plaintiff, a young woman identified as KGM and her mother, according to NPRwhich noted that Meta would be responsible for about 70 percent of that amount and that the companies could face future penalties. The family accused the platforms of deliberately making their products addictive and aimed at teenagers, despite internal research showing it could damage their mental health.
The Los Angeles Superior Court decision is among the first in a wave of hundreds of suits by schools, attorneys general and others bringing personal injury lawsuits over the alleged recklessness of big tech companies.
A New Mexico jury recently found Meta liable for similar claims, and the company was ordered to pay $375 million in damages. Meta said it would appeal the decision. Meanwhile, a lawsuit is also pending in a federal court based in California.
“We disagree with the verdict and plan to appeal,” Jose Castaneda, a Google spokesman, said in a statement. “This case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site.” Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, advocates for children’s online safety immediately welcomed the decision.
“For too many years, children have suffered immeasurable harm from social media while the owners of these tech companies have reaped billions in profits,” John M. Bennett, director of the advocacy group California Initiative for Technology and Democracy, said in a statement, calling the tech industry’s business model “fundamentally exploitative, addicting young children to create lifelong users, regardless of the cost to their health or harm to their lives.”
A bell ringer
The Los Angeles lawsuit is among the earliest in a series of lawsuits alleging social media products are designed to be addictive. Tech companies have long said they cannot be held legally responsible for individual works that appear on their platforms, including by bad actors such as fraudsters and terrorist groups.
But more recent cases like these have instead focused on proving that tech companies were aware of the dangers their products could pose to young people, but targeted them anyway. Those dangers, according to the plaintiffs, include addiction, depression and body image issues.
The cases have already produced reams of embarrassing internal documents that plaintiffs say show executives put profits over the mental health of teenagers.
One document recently discussed at a federal hearing in California included a 2016 email from Mark Zuckerberg about Facebook’s live video feature. In the email, Zuckerberg wrote that the company would “have to be very good about not notifying parents/teachers” about videos of teenagers.
In the Los Angeles case, tech executives, including Zuckerberg, took the stand for questioning about their business practices. The lawsuit originally named Snap and TikTok as defendants as well, but those companies settled the claims earlier in the process.
If the companies continue to lose in future lawsuits over the same issue, they could be on the hook for billions more in damages.
More cases to come
The first signs of large financial penalties for tech companies facing litigation are already emerging.
In a recently decided New Mexico case brought by the state’s attorney general, a the jury found Meta liable on all counts of “unfair and deceptive” practices under New Mexico law. The decision in the Los Angeles trial could increase pressure on tech companies to settle future lawsuits and change business practices in the future.
“Today, jurors saw the truth and found Meta and Google liable for designing products that are addictive and harmful to children,” the lawyers leading the parallel California-based federal lawsuit against the tech companies said in a statement. “Top tech executives took the stand and their own internal documents were presented to a jury, revealing that company management knew their platforms hurt children and repeatedly chose profits over children’s safety.”
This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.