Meta and YouTube have to pay 6 million dollars (5.1 million euros) in damages to a 20-year-old woman, after a jury found that social networks were designed to make young users dependent.
The plaintiff, identified by her initials KGM, explained in court that as a child, she spent up to 16 hours a day on social networks, especially on Meta platforms and YouTube, owned by Google, which worsened her mental health issues.
The jurors ruled in her favor after 40 hours of trial and awarded 3 million dollars (2.54 million euros) in compensatory damages.
They also recommended an additional 3 million dollars in punitive damages, stating that the companies had acted with malice, oppression, or fraud by exposing children to their platforms. The judge will have the final say on the final amount of damages.
One juror told journalists after the verdict that the testimony of Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, was not well received by the jury.
The amount of the sanction was set by the jurors because they were reluctant to award a very high lump sum to a single plaintiff, but they wanted the companies to understand that their practices are unacceptable.
The lawsuit in California served as a “test case” and is expected to influence how thousands of other cases against social networks regarding deliberate harm will be judged.
Meta deemed “more negligent” than YouTube
Meta and YouTube were found to be negligent in designing their platforms, according to the jurors, and this negligence caused harm to KGM.
Each company knew that their platforms could be dangerous for minors, but they did not adequately warn about this danger, added the jurors.
Meta was deemed more responsible for the harm suffered by KGM and will shoulder 70% of the 6 million dollars, with YouTube covering the remaining 30%.
During the six-week trial, jurors heard arguments from lawyers, pieces of evidence, as well as testimonies from Zuckerberg (source in English) and Adam Mosseri (source in English), the head of Instagram.
KGM’s lawyers argued that certain design features, like “infinite scrolling”, which allows users to continuously scroll through content and watch automatically playing videos, promote addiction.
The verdict paints an incorrect picture of YouTube, “which is a responsibly designed streaming platform, not a social network,” said Jose Castaneda, a Google spokesperson.
The mental health of teenagers is “extremely complex and cannot be attributed to a single app,” Meta argued in a statement to the Associated Press agency.
During the proceeding, Meta argued that KGM’s mental health issues were linked to an unstable family environment, rather than her social media use.
YouTube’s arguments focused more on the nature of the platform, portrayed as akin to television rather than a social network. YouTube’s lawyers also highlighted that KGM’s time on YouTube had decreased with age.
Representatives for both platforms also emphasized their security features and safeguards that allow users to monitor and customize their usage.
Thousands of ongoing cases could be influenced by this verdict
Sarah Kreps, a professor and director of the Tech Policy Institute at Cornell University, believes this verdict could serve as a precedent for resolving “thousands” of other ongoing cases in the United States.
“If you’re a social media platform, you’re thinking that if this case goes in this direction, the others could follow,” she explained. “Once such a verdict is reached in a case, it paves the way for many others.”
Peter Ormerod, an associate professor of law at Villanova University, called this verdict a “major development.”
However, he pointed out that the public should not expect immediate changes from the platforms, as this case is “just a step in a much longer saga.”
“I don’t think this is an unqualified victory, and I believe it will take a long time before we see something resembling the global settlement that this case is often compared to in tobacco or opioid lawsuits,” he added.
Ormerod believes that for significant changes to occur, Meta and Google will likely need to lose their legal arguments on appeal, as well as in other similar test cases.
This is the second judgment against Meta in a week, after a New Mexico jury imposed a sanction of 375 million dollars (317 million euros) on the company, finding that the platform knowingly harmed children’s mental health and concealed information about the sexual exploitation of minors.
This decision, issued on Tuesday, concludes that Meta engaged in “unacceptable” business practices, exploiting children’s vulnerability and lack of experience.
More than 40 state attorneys general have filed lawsuits against Meta, claiming that the group contributes to a mental health crisis among young people by deliberately designing addictive features on Instagram and Facebook.
