A Los Angeles jury on Wednesday found Meta and Google liable in a closely watched trial accusing social media platforms of designing their products to get young users addicted, awarding the plaintiff $3 million in damages.
Meta was ordered to pay 70% of the awarded compensatory damages, while Google is responsible for the rest. The verdict came after nine days, roughly 43 hours, of deliberations. The jury is expected to make a determination on punitive damages.
Outside the courthouse, parents who say they lost their children due to social media-related deaths gathered in anticipation of the verdict. There were cheers and hugs when they heard the verdict.
Jurors found that Instagram’s parent company Meta and Google’s YouTube acted with “malice, oppression, or fraud” which means there will also be punitive damages determined on top of the $3 million total compensatory damages. There will be a hearing where all parties have 20 minutes to speak to assess punitive damages.
“We respectfully disagree with the verdict and are evaluating our legal options,” a Meta spokesperson said shortly after the verdict.
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The case centered on a now 20-year-old California woman identified as K.G.M., who said social media platforms encouraged addictive use when she was a minor and contributed to depression and suicidal thoughts.
Her lawsuit alleged that companies behind several major platforms designed their products in ways that encouraged compulsive use among young people.
The companies have denied wrongdoing and argued their services include safety tools and parental controls.
TikTok and Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, were originally named as defendants but settled ahead of trial, leaving Meta and Google-owned YouTube as the remaining companies in the case.
Jurors listened to about a month of lawyers’ arguments, testimony and evidence, and KGM herself. She said she began using YouTube at age 6 and Instagram at age 9 and told the jury she was on social media “all day long” as a child.
Her lawyers noted specific design features they said were designed to “hook” young users, like the “infinite” nature of feeds that allowed for an endless supply of content, autoplay features, and even notifications.
The landmark trial had been closely watched as one of the first to test in front of a jury whether social media companies can be held legally responsible for alleged harms tied to youth use of their platforms.
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Jurors were asked to determine whether Meta or YouTube should have known their platforms posed a danger to children, whether the companies were negligent in designing their products, and if so, whether their services were a “substantial factor” in causing the plaintiff’s mental health issues.
On Monday, jurors asked Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl how to move forward amid difficulty coming to a verdict with one of the two defendants. They were given their previous instructions, with the judge suggesting they read the details out loud before they were sent back for more deliberations.
The verdict came a day after a jury in New Mexico ordered Meta to pay $375 million after finding the company misled users about the safety of its platforms and allegedly enabled child sexual exploitation in a separate trial.
After the verdict in Los Angeles, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez called the jurors’ decision a “step toward justice” that puts big tech executives on notice.
“Juries in New Mexico and California have recognized that Meta’s public deception and design features are putting children in harm’s way,” Torrez said. “In the next phase of New Mexico’s trial, my number one priority remains changing the company’s longstanding and dangerous practice of prioritizing profits over children’s safety. We will seek court-mandated changes to Meta’s platforms that offer protections for kids.”
FOX Business’ Kelly Saberi, as well as The Associated Press contributed to this report.
