A California jury in a landmark ruling with far-reaching implications for the tech industry on Wednesday found Meta and YouTube not guilty of creating addictive social media platforms that harmed children.
After more than a week of deliberations, the judges ruled in favor of the plaintiff – a now 20-year-old California woman identified as KGM in Los Angeles Superior Court documents – concluding that the design features of platforms such as YouTube, Instagram and Facebook fueled her frequent use as a teenager, exacerbating depression and suicidal thoughts.
It is the first time that major social media companies have been found responsible by a US court for creating addictive products. The decision came after a week-long trial that featured surprising testimony from the company’s top executives, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
The ruling comes on the heels of another ruling Tuesday in New Mexico in which a jury found Meta liable for endangering children and misleading the public about the safety of its platforms. In that case, Meta must pay $375 million in civil penalties.
“Today’s decision is a referendum – from the jury, to the entire industry – that accountability.
it has arrived,” the plaintiff’s lawyers representing KGM said in a statement.
The court ruled that Meta and YouTube owe KGM $3 million in compensatory damages, with Meta given 70 percent responsibility and YouTube the rest. Ten justices voted in favor of the plaintiffs, while two voted in favor of the defense.
The judges also found Meta and YouTube should pay punitive damages. The exact amount that Meta and YouTube owe — and whether the companies will be ordered to rebuild certain parts of their systems — will be determined in the next phase of the trial.
In a statement following the decision, a Meta spokesperson said: “We respectfully disagree with the decision and are evaluating our legal options.”
José Castañeda, a spokesman for YouTube’s parent company Google, said the platform plans to appeal the decision. “This case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsible streaming platform, not a social media site,” he said in a statement.
For decades, platformsthey are protectedand federal liability protections enacted during the early days of the Internet. But after Wednesday’s ruling, tech giants suddenly appear to be on the receiving end of hundreds of similar lawsuits that could bring more damage or force product redesigns.
The Los Angeles experiment is alarminghundreds of such cases brought by more than 1,600 plaintiffsfrom California school districts that blame the platforms for many students’ mental health problems to families that accuse social media platforms of harming their children.
Social media companies Snap and TikTok, which settled the KGM case just days before it went to trial, are named along with Meta and YouTube as defendants in the remaining cases, some of which are expected to go to trial later this year.
Infederal levelmore than 235 plaintiffs are suing Meta, Snap, TikTok and Google on similar grounds. Trials in the federal system are scheduled to begin as soon as this June.
“It should be a wake-up call for everybody,” New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez told POLITICO in an interview referring to the rollback decision this week. “It’s time to change the way these companies do business.”
A Meta spokesperson said the company disagrees with New Mexico’s decision and will appeal the decision.
