A U.S. court has found social media platform operators liable for damages related to teen addiction to their services, marking a landmark legal judgment.
A jury in a California state trial court on Tuesday ordered Meta and Google to pay a combined $6 million (approximately 90 billion won) in damages. The amount comprises $3 million in compensatory damages for harm suffered by the plaintiff and an equal amount in punitive damages. If the verdict stands, Meta will bear 70% of the total and Google 30%.
The verdict came after a trial lasting more than a month and over 40 hours of jury deliberation spanning nine days. During the proceedings, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri were called as witnesses, leading to intense arguments over the platforms' responsibility.
The plaintiff, a woman in her 20s identified as Kayleigh G.M., began using YouTube at age 6 and Instagram at age 9, claiming she developed severe social media addiction that led to depression and physical disabilities. She argued the companies deliberately designed their algorithms and content recommendation systems to keep users locked into their platforms.
Meta and Google pushed back forcefully. Meta argued that Kayleigh had pre-existing mental health issues unrelated to social media. Google countered that YouTube is a video streaming platform similar to television, not a social media service.
The jury sided with the plaintiff. It found that Instagram and YouTube were structured to encourage addictive behavior aimed at increasing time spent by young users, and that this made the companies partly responsible for the plaintiff's mental and physical harm.
The case is widely regarded as a bellwether trial — a test case selected from a large number of lawsuits with similar issues to set a precedent for future litigation.
According to NPR, approximately 2,000 social media-related lawsuits filed by parents and school districts are currently pending across the United States. Sarah Kreps, a professor at Cornell University, said, "There are hundreds of similar cases in California alone and thousands in total. Once a verdict like this comes through even once, it will open the floodgates for numerous follow-on lawsuits."
Meta said it "respectfully disagrees with the verdict" and is "reviewing its legal options." Google also pushed back, stating, "YouTube is a streaming platform, not a social media site," arguing the verdict mischaracterized the nature of the platform.
Meanwhile, the plaintiff had also sued TikTok and Snap, the operator of Snapchat, but both companies reached settlements before trial and were dropped from the case.