A jury ordered Meta and YouTube to pay a combined $6m (£4.5m) to a young woman who said she was addicted to social media as a child, contributing to her mental health struggles — a verdict both companies have vowed to appeal. The case is one of thousands of lawsuits sweeping through US courts, accusing the world's largest social platforms of harming users, children in particular. Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, Google, which owns YouTube, and Snapchat, along with TikTok, Discord and social gaming platform Roblox, face a barrage of legal action that legal observers say could change how social media operates forever.
"It's created a stage that not only legal observers are watching, but regulators and lawmakers are watching closely as well," said Eric Talley, a lawyer and professor at Columbia Law School. Talley noted that the growing wave of lawsuits is feeding into broader public perception, likely influencing political elections for the next several years and shaping new laws and regulations. Many of the cases are being heard in California, where all major social platforms are headquartered — a phenomenon known as the "California effect," where legal and policy changes in the state tend to ripple nationwide.
“A jury ordered Meta and YouTube to pay $6m to a woman who said she was addicted as a child.”
"There's no denying anymore that there is an issue with child safety on the platforms," said Alexis Shore Ingber, a communications law expert and professor at Syracuse University. "We are seeing an inflection point. These cases are significant." Earlier this year, Meta also lost a separate case brought by New Mexico's attorney general, who accused the company of misleading the public about its platforms' safety for children despite known issues of sexual exploitation. Meta plans to appeal that verdict as well.
In the years since these lawsuits were brought, Meta has introduced changes to its platforms aimed at making them safer for young users. But broader change — to how platforms are designed, function and are accessed — is likely to take years more, and more court rulings against them. Between this year and next, Meta and other major platforms are poised to fight through more trials where juries could consider claims from young users, their parents and school districts.