Jury signals tech titans on hook for social media addiction

A question by jurors in a landmark social media addiction trial on Friday signaled Meta or YouTube may have to pay for letting a girl get hooked onto their platforms.

The jury’s first full week of deliberations ended with the panel sending the judge a query related to calculating damages in the case, which is expected to set a precedent for thousands of similar suits in the nation.

“We don’t start dancing in the streets over what seems to be a good question,” said plaintiff’s attorney Mark Lanier.

“But we’re appreciative of the fact that they’re on the issues of damages.”

To turn their attention to damages, enough jurors had to essentially agree that one or both accused tech platforms was negligently or harmfully designed and users should have been warned, according to verdict forms.

Jurors will return to the Los Angeles courthouse on Monday to resume deliberations.

Since jury deliberations began on March 13, the jury has sent questions to the judge related to the plaintiff’s family troubles as well as how much she actually used Meta-owned Instagram as a child.

– Negligent in design? –

The verdict could turn on the question of whether familial strife and other real-world trauma, or YouTube and Meta apps such as Instagram, were to blame for mental woes of the woman who filed the suit.

A 20-year-old California woman identified as Kaley G.M. testified at trial that YouTube and Instagram fueled her depression and suicidal thoughts as a child, telling jurors that she became obsessed with social media, starting with YouTube videos, when she was six.

Under cross examination, however, Kaley also talked about feeling neglected, berated and picked on by family members.

A jury form given to jurors asks the panel to decide whether Meta or YouTube should have known their services posed a danger to children or if they were negligent in design.

If so, jurors are to decide if Meta or YouTube were “substantial factors” in causing Kaley’s woes and how much they should pay in damages.

Whatever the verdict, the trial highlights “an important tension” between social media platforms and vulnerable young internet users, reasoned University of Pittsburgh marketing professor Vanitha Swaminathan.

“The platforms have to address the concerns of this important segment,” Swaminathan told AFP.

The lawsuit is one of hundreds accusing social media firms of luring young users into becoming addicted to their content and potentially suffer from depression, eating disorders, psychiatric hospitalization and even suicide.

Internet titans have long shielded themselves with Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act, which frees them of responsibility for what social media users post.

However, this case argues that the firms are responsible for defective products, with business models designed to hold people’s attention and to promote content that can harm their mental health.

The outcome of the trial is expected to establish a precedent for resolving other lawsuits that blame social media for fueling an epidemic of mental and emotional trauma.