A legal reckoning for social media firms

It has been referred to as a bellwether case, a landmark decision and a profound “enough is enough” moment.

It remains to be seen, however, whether last week’s jury verdict in a case involving a 20-year-old California woman’s claim that social media addiction during her childhood led to mental health distress will have far-reaching implications for the creators, purveyors and users of social-media platforms.

But what’s clear in the aftermath of the decision — which held Meta (which owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp) and YouTube (owned by Google) liable for intentionally building addictive platforms that harmed the woman’s mental health during childhood and adolescence — is that the ground is shifting in the relationship between social-media giants and their untold millions of users.

The woman (identified in court records as “K.G.M.”) sued the companies on the basis they had created products as addictive as cigarettes or digital casinos. She began using social media at age six, and the suit argued elements of social- media platforms such as algorithmic recommendations and infinite scrolling pushed her into a cycle of compulsive and detrimental behaviour that resulted in anxiety, depression, body dysmorphia and thoughts of self-harm.

K.G.M.’s lawyers produced internal company documents that showed executives at both Meta and YouTube were aware of and discussed the negative effects of their products on children.

After a week-long deliberation, the jury found both companies liable and awarded US$6 million in punitive and compensatory damages. That amount is negligible to the social-media giants — which collectively amass billions in profit every quarter and have a combined worth that measures in the trillions — but the decision could have a significant impact on hundreds of similar cases that are awaiting trial.

“This is the first time in history a jury has heard testimony by executives and seen internal documents that we believe prove these companies chose profits over children,” said one of K.G.M.’s lawyers.

The outcome follows close on the heels of a decision last week in New Mexico that found Meta liable for failing to safeguard its users from child predators and ordered the company to pay US$375 million for violating state consumer-protection laws. Predictably, the social-media companies say they intend to appeal the verdicts.

It might be a stretch to say last week amounted to a watershed “big tobacco” moment in the struggle to hold social-media giants responsible for the harms caused to their most vulnerable users. But there’s no arguing the trendline is moving away from the too-big-to-be-accountable posture they have sought to maintain as their global influence expanded and their unfathomable profits skyrocketed.

Australia’s government last year imposed a ban on social media for children under 16, and many other countries — including Canada — are considering similar legislative measures. And as more cases like K.G.M.’s are argued and juries deliver (one hopes) similarly forceful decisions, it might become possible to conclude a long-overdue reckoning really has begun.

In his 2024 book The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues social media companies have indeed behaved like the tobacco and vaping industries, designing highly addictive products and then actively skirting laws that limit marketing to minors.

“These companies have rewired childhood and changed human development on an almost unimaginable scale,” he writes.

The jury in the K.G.M. case seems inclined to agree. If others follow suit, perhaps the peddlers of social media content might finally feel compelled to shift their focus from predation to protection.