Tech addiction trial: Social media giants face their tobacco moment

LAWSUITS ALLEGE FIRMS KNOWINGLY MADE PLATFORMS ADDICTIVE FOR KIDS

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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg leaves after testifying in a landmark trial over whether social media platforms deliberately cause addiction and harm children, in Los Angeles, on Wednesday.

(AP)

Two of the world's largest social media platforms are facing a jury trial over allegations that they intentionally designed their products to be addictive to young people - drawing comparisons to Big Tobacco's reckoning with consumer addiction three decades ago.

The trial in Los Angeles, the first of its kind, centre on a 20-year-old woman who says her nonstop use for more than a decade of sites including Meta Platforms Inc.'s Instagram and Google's YouTube caused her to suffer anxiety, depression and body dysmorphia. The companies are exposed to potentially billions of dollars in damages and the possibility that they could be forced to overhaul core features of their platforms.

Thousands of similar cases brought against the two companies as well as Snap Inc. and TikTok Inc. parent ByteDance Ltd. are pending in court. The Los Angeles trial is the first of several planned for this year.

The Los Angeles trial is over a complaint brought by a woman from Chico, California, who's identified in filings as K.G.M. rather than her full name because she was still a minor when she sued. TikTok and Snap aren't party to the Los Angeles trial because they reached confidential settlements with K.G.M.