Jury Finds Meta and Google Negligent in Landmark Social Media Addiction Case

Today, a jury in California found Meta and Google negligent for designing their platforms to addict child users in what is set to be one of the most important social media trials to date.

Meta and Google face $3 million in compensatory damages for pain and suffering as well as other financial penalties. The jury will now consider whether the company should pay further punitive damages for malice or fraud.

This was the first jury verdict announced in the many cases filed against Big Tech for designing addictive social media platforms. It was brought forward by plaintiff K.G.M., a 20-year-old who experienced severe mental health harms after becoming addicted to social media platforms run by defendants Meta and YouTube. Her case against TikTok and Snap settled before the trial began.  

This monumental verdict is in line with EPIC’s long-held position: Social media platforms are products. They are created and released by companies that must be held accountable when their products harm people, just like a charger that starts a fire or faulty airbags that fail to deploy in a car crash.

The evidence now in the public record shows how companies engineered their products to be addictive through design features like infinite scroll, push notifications, and harmful forms of algorithmic amplification, knowing these designs harmed users (especially kids) but deploying them anyway to boost usage. According to new Pew Research Center survey data, 36% of U.S. teens say they use TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, and/or Facebook “almost constantly.”

This case is important because it is the first of many seeking to hold tech giants liable for their harmful conduct. More than 2,000 plaintiffs are alleging social media companies like Meta, Snapchat, TikTok, and Alphabet knowingly designed addictive products that expose children to predators, exploitation, and self-harm. Plaintiffs in various cases include teens, school districts, and state attorneys general.

In this case and others, the companies have attempted to use overbroad interpretations of Section 230 and the First Amendment to escape accountability. They claim that harmful user-generated content, not the company’s own actions, harmed a plaintiff. But this case shows that Big Tech companies can no longer escape accountability for knowingly designing addictive products that expose children to harm.

EPIC has long advocated for greater accountability for companies who design online platforms in harmful ways, contributing many amicus briefs in similar cases, analyzing weaknesses in the companies’ legal arguments, and authoring model legislation that would prohibit the harmful acts at issue in this case.