In the same week, juries in both California and New Mexico delivered landmark verdicts holding Meta and YouTube accountable for harming children through addictive social media platform designs, marking the first time in U.S. legal history that tech companies have been found liable for the mental health damage their products cause to young users.
The California Verdict
On Wednesday, March 25, a Los Angeles County Superior Court jury found Meta and Google negligent in a civil trial brought by a 20-year-old plaintiff identified as KGM. The jury determined that both companies designed their platforms to be addictive and failed to warn users about the risks, according to ABC News.
The jury awarded KGM $3 million in compensatory damages and $3 million in punitive damages, totaling $6 million. Meta was found responsible for 70% of the harm, while YouTube was assigned 30%.
During the five-week trial, KGM testified that she started using YouTube at age six and Instagram at nine, eventually spending up to 16 hours a day on social media. She was diagnosed with anxiety and depression by age 10. "I stopped engaging with family because I was spending all my time on social media," she said.
The New Mexico Verdict
Just one day earlier, a jury in New Mexico found Meta liable for endangering children and violating the state's Unfair Practices Act. The jury identified thousands of violations and recommended $375 million in civil penalties, PBS reported. The case was built on an undercover investigation in which agents posed as minors and documented sexual solicitations on Meta's platforms.
What This Means Going Forward
Both verdicts carry major implications. The California case is a bellwether for roughly 2,000 pending lawsuits from parents and school districts across the country. Legal experts have compared the wave of litigation to the tobacco industry lawsuits of the 1990s.
Meta and Google have both said they plan to appeal. Meta stated that teen mental health is "profoundly complex and cannot be linked to a single app," while Google called YouTube "a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site," as per the BBC.
Key Takeaways for Parents
These rulings reinforce what child safety advocates have long warned: social media platforms are designed to keep users, including children, engaged for as long as possible.
Parents should monitor how early and how often their children access these apps, set firm screen time limits, and watch for features like push notifications, autoplay, and algorithmic recommendations that make these platforms hard to put down.
With courts now recognizing these designs as defective, the legal landscape is shifting in favor of families seeking accountability from Big Tech.
