Lawyer Mark Lanier, of the plaintiff Kaley G.M., speaks with the media outside the court after the jury found Meta and Google liable in a key test case accusing Meta and Google’s YouTube of harming children’s mental health through addictive social media platforms, in Los Angeles, California, U.S., March 25, 2026.
| Photo Credit:
REUTERS/Mike Blake
A Los Angeles jury on
Wednesday found Meta and Alphabet’s Google
negligent for designing social media platforms that are harmful
to young people, in a $6 million verdict that will serve as a
bellwether for numerous similar cases.
The jury found Meta liable for $4.2 million in damages and
Google for $1.8 million, small amounts for two of the world’s
most valuable companies with annual capital spending over $100
billion each.
The Los Angeles trial is meant to serve as a bellwether, or test
case, for the thousands of similar lawsuits consolidated in
California state courts.
‘ACCOUNTABILITY HAS ARRIVED’
The case involves a 20-year-old woman, a minor when the case
began who is known in court by her first name Kaley. She said
she became addicted to Google’s YouTube and Meta’s Instagram at
a young age because of their attention-grabbing design, such as
the “infinite scroll” that encourages users to keep looking at
new posts.
The jury found Google and Meta were negligent in the design
of both apps and failed to warn about their dangers.
“Today’s verdict is a referendum — from a jury, to an entire
industry — that accountability has arrived,” the plaintiff’s
lead counsel said in a statement.
Meta and Google disagree with the verdict and plan to
appeal, spokespeople for each company said.
Shares of Meta closed up 0.3%, and Google parent Alphabet
finished 0.2% higher.
U.S. law strongly protects social media companies from
liability for what is on their platforms, but the plaintiff in
the Los Angeles proceeding focused on platform design rather
than content.
The verdict is a “setback” for Meta and Google, said Gil
Luria, a technology sector analyst at investment firm D.A.
Davidson.
“This process will likely get dragged out through future
cases and appeals, but eventually may cause these companies to
put in consumer safeguards that may dampen growth,” he said.
Snap and TikTok were also defendants in the trial. Both settled
with the plaintiff before it began. Terms of the agreements were
not disclosed.
MOUNTING CRITICISM
Large technology companies in the U.S. have faced mounting
criticism in the last decade over child and teen safety. The
debate has now shifted to courts and state governments. The U.S.
Congress has declined to pass comprehensive legislation
regulating social media.
At least 20 states enacted laws last year on social media usage
and children, according to the nonpartisan National Conference
of State Legislatures, an organization that tracks state laws.
The legislation includes bills that regulate the use of
cellphones in schools and require users to verify their ages to
open a social media account. NetChoice, a trade association
backed by tech companies such as Meta and Google, is seeking to
invalidate age verification requirements in court.
U.S. senators Marsha Blackburn, a Republican, and Richard
Blumenthal, a Democrat, in statements after the verdict, called
on Congress to pass legislation directing social media companies
to design their platforms with kids’ safety in mind.
A separate social media addiction case brought by several states
and school districts against technology companies is expected to
go to trial this summer in federal court in Oakland, California.
Another state trial is slated to begin in Los Angeles in
July, said Matthew Bergman, one of the attorneys leading the
cases for the plaintiffs. It will involve Instagram, YouTube,
TikTok and Snapchat.
Separately, a New Mexico jury on Tuesday found Meta violated
state law in a lawsuit brought by the state’s attorney general,
who accused the company of misleading users about the safety of
Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp and of enabling child sexual
exploitation on those platforms.
TRIAL ARGUMENTS
At trial, the plaintiff’s lawyers sought to show Meta and
Google intentionally targeted kids and made decisions that put
profit over safety. Meta’s attorneys emphasized the plaintiff’s
difficult home life as a child as the cause of her mental health
struggles, while YouTube argued her usage of the streaming
platform was minimal.
Jurors saw internal documents revealing how Meta and Google
sought to attract younger users, and heard executives, including
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, take the stand last month to defend
company decisions.
When asked about Meta’s decision to lift a temporary ban on
beauty filters that some inside Meta warned could be harmful to
teen girls, Zuckerberg said he decided to let users express
themselves.
“I felt like the evidence wasn’t clear enough to support
limiting people’s expression,” he said.
How free speech and content moderation factored into the
companies’ decisions is likely to play a part in any appeal.
Published on March 26, 2026
