A Los Angeles jury has ordered Meta and YouTube to pay $3 million in damages for negligence regarding the mental health impacts of their platforms on a young user, marking a major shift in social media liability.
In a landmark verdict that draws comparisons to the “Big Tobacco” litigations of the 1990s, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury found Meta and Google’s YouTube negligent on Wednesday for failing to warn users of the mental health risks associated with their platforms. The jury awarded $3 million in compensatory damages to the plaintiff, a 20-year-old woman identified as K.G.M., after determining that the companies’ design features were a “substantial factor” in her struggles with addiction, body dysmorphia, and depression.
While the plaintiff’s attorneys hailed the decision as a “historic moment” for holding tech giants accountable for what they “knew and when they knew it,” Meta and YouTube both signaled plans to appeal, with a Google spokesperson asserting that the case “misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site.” This bellwether trial, which featured testimony from executives like Mark Zuckerberg and Adam Mosseri, sets a critical precedent for thousands of similar pending lawsuits as the court moves toward a second phase to determine punitive damages.
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