YouTube and Meta lose pivotal court case

Meta and YouTube deliberately designed addictive products that hooked a young user and led to her being harmed, a US jury found yesterday in a landmark ruling.

- Dara Kerr

In the first lawsuit of its kind to go to trial, jurors found the companies had been negligent and had failed to provide adequate warnings about the potential dangers of their products.

The jury awarded the plaintiff in the case compensatory damages of $3m. Meta is to pay 70% and YouTube the remainder. Jurors also awarded punitive damages, the amount of which will be decided during the next phase of the trial. It took nearly nine days of deliberations for the Los Angeles jury to reach its verdict.

Over the course of the six-week trial, in Los Angeles superior court, jurors heard from top executives at Meta and YouTube, whistleblowers, expert witnesses on social media and addiction, and the 20-year-old woman at the centre of the lawsuit, who has gone by the initials KGM for court proceedings.

KGM testified that she had become addicted to YouTube at the age of six and Instagram at nine, which she said had deleterious effects on her well-being. By age 10, she said, she had become depressed and was engaging in self-harm as a result. Her social media use allegedly caused her to have strained relationships with her family and in school.

When she was 13, KGM's therapist diagnosed her with body dysmorphic disorder and social phobia, which KGM attributes to her use of Instagram and YouTube.