Social Media Addiction on Trial

Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, and Google, the owner of YouTube, are facing a landmark trial in California over the addictiveness of social media platforms, the first in a series of novel lawsuits challenging the tech companies over product design rather than content.

The case centers on a woman from Los Angeles, who is accusing social media companies of getting her hooked on various platforms as a child, leading to mental health issues. She is identified as "KGM" in the court documents, and her case is part of a consolidated group of thousands of cases lumped together into one proceeding.

"These first of their kind trials address what many believe to be the greatest threat to our children: social media. They will have to assimilate and balance between a number of basic rights, laws and freedoms," said Los Angeles-based media and entertainment attorney Tre Lovell.

TikTok and Snap were also part of the litigation leading up to the trial. But both companies recently settled rather than go through the trial. Top executives from Meta and YouTube are expected to testify at the trial. The lawsuits have been compared to the legal claims brought against cigarette companies in a prior generation because the companies denied the addictiveness of their products while privately admitting their products were addictive and harmful.

Tech companies routinely argue they are immune from liability under Section 230, a provision of the 1996 Communications Decency Act that protects digital platforms from liability for content posted by users. More recently, the firms have begun pointing to the tools they have created to protect young users on their platforms and limit their exposure to certain content.

Before the trial, the companies attributed the mental health impacts of social media to the content on the platforms, rather than the design features, Courthouse News reported. KGM, the main plaintiff, alleges her use of social media began as a young child and led to her developing depression, anxiety, and body dysmorphia.

"These are freedom of speech, the scope of immunity protections under Section 230 of the Communications and Decency Act (which has been the greatest protector for social media and search engines to date), parental responsibility and accountability, the right to market and advertise, and the need for Congressional intervention in terms of regulation, all pertaining to privately held companies," Lovell said. "Should any of these cases be successful, it would open the door to a floodgate of lawsuits that may become unmanageable and threaten the viability of these companies, as well as affect billions of people who are not subject to the damages alleged by the plaintiffs and who gain great benefit from the services and operations of these companies."

Meta and YouTube are expected to vociferously deny the plaintiff's claims that features common across social media platforms are responsible for her mental health issues. They will likely focus on her personal history and the content she decided to engage with online. Moreover, the companies could point to the mixed-bag of research on whether social media creates the chemical alterations to the human body that addictive substances have been shown to.

When reached for comment, Meta pointed NR to a detailed blog post laying out the steps its taken to support teenage users and assist authorities with mitigating threats.

"Despite this complexity, plaintiffs’ lawyers have selectively cited Meta’s internal documents to construct a misleading narrative, suggesting our platforms have harmed teens and that Meta has prioritized growth over their well-being. These claims don’t reflect reality. The evidence will show a company deeply and responsibly confronting tough questions, conducting research, listening to parents, academics, and safety experts, and taking action," the post asserts.

YouTube similarly denied the plaintiff's allegations and referred to its youth-oriented features. "Providing young people with a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work. In collaboration with youth, mental health and parenting experts, we built services and policies to provide young people with age-appropriate experiences, and parents with robust controls. The allegations in these complaints are simply not true." said Google spokesman José Castañeda.

Jury selection in the trial began on January 27. The trial is expected to last several weeks, with opening arguments expected to begin this week. It is one of several major social media-related lawsuits scheduled to go to trial this year. The state of New Mexico's lawsuit against Meta for allegedly failing to protect users from sexual predators is set to begin its trial on Monday.

Individuals, school districts, and states have launched legal claims against tech platforms over the addictiveness of social media. Features such as infinite scrolling, auto-play videos, and potent recommendation algorithms are routinely cited as platform tools that keep users engaged for extended periods of time. Internal documents and testimony during the KGM case could become public during the trials, potentially revealing new information about how tech companies managed the explosion of social media usage.

"These trials serve as a critical inflection point. Section 230 will not save the huge tech companies that we love and hate, because the plaintiffs are not suing over what users posted. They are suing over how the product itself was engineered. That is product liability," said James Rabinowitz, a New York-based trial attorney.

"When companies design infinite scroll, auto-play videos, and dopamine triggering notification systems specifically to keep children glued to screens, they have created a defective product," he said.

The addictive nature of tech products is an issue outside of normal partisan lines. States and school districts nationwide have adopted bans and restrictions on phone usage in school because of the impact they have on attention spans. Lawmakers on the federal level have also attempted to pass bipartisan legislation to enact new guardrails on social media platforms, thus far without success.