Jury selection is set to start in a trial over whether Meta, TikTok and YouTube fuel excessive social media use by children in ways that harm their mental health.
At the heart of the case are allegations by a 19-year-old plaintiff, identified only as “KGM,” who claims that using social media from a young age caused her to become addicted to the technology, which led her to develop depression and suicidal thoughts.
Potential bellwether
Legal experts have said the trial could be a bellwether for more than a thousand similar cases brought against social media players in recent years. Depending on the outcome, tech giants could be forced to overhaul their platforms, CBS News Philadelphia reported.
The trial will also serve as a test case to see what damages, if any, may be awarded to plaintiffs, said Clay Calvert, a nonresident senior fellow of technology policy studies at the nonpartisan American Enterprise Institute.
The trial, which kicks off this week in Los Angeles County Superior Court, is the first time major social media companies will argue their case before a jury. The jury selection process is expected to take several days, with 75 potential jurors questioned each day. A fourth company named in the lawsuit, Snapchat parent company Snap, settled the case last week for an undisclosed sum.
KGM’s lawsuit alleges that the social media addiction and mental illness she suffered were caused by deliberate design choices made by companies that sought to make their platforms more addictive to children to boost profits. This argument, if successful, could sidestep the companies’ First Amendment shield and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects tech companies from liability for material posted on their platforms.
“Borrowing heavily from the behavioral and neurobiological techniques used by slot machines and exploited by the cigarette industry, Defendants deliberately embedded in their products an array of design features aimed at maximizing youth engagement to drive advertising revenue,” the lawsuit says.
Zuckerberg expected to testify
Executives, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, are expected to testify at the trial, which will last six to eight weeks. Experts have drawn similarities to the Big Tobacco trials that led to a 1998 settlement requiring cigarette companies to pay billions in healthcare costs and restrict marketing targeting minors.
“Plaintiffs are not merely the collateral damage of Defendants’ products,” the lawsuit says. “They are the direct victims of the intentional product design choices made by each Defendant. They are the intended targets of the harmful features that pushed them into self-destructive feedback loops.”
The tech companies dispute the claims that their products deliberately harm children, citing a bevy of safeguards they have added over the years and arguing that they are not liable for content posted on their sites by third parties.
“Recently, a number of lawsuits have attempted to place the blame for teen mental health struggles squarely on social media companies,” Meta said in a recent blog post. “But this oversimplifies a serious issue. Clinicians and researchers find that mental health is a deeply complex and multifaceted issue, and trends regarding teens’ well-being aren’t clear-cut or universal. Narrowing the challenges faced by teens to a single factor ignores the scientific research and the many stressors impacting young people today, like academic pressure, school safety, socio-economic challenges and substance abuse.”
Meta, YouTube and TikTok did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
School lawsuits
The case will be the first in a slew of cases beginning this year that seek to hold social media companies responsible for harming children’s mental well-being. A federal trial beginning in June in Oakland, California, will be the first to represent school districts that have sued social media platforms over harms to children.
In addition, more than 40 state attorneys general have filed lawsuits against Meta, claiming it is harming young people and contributing to the youth mental health crisis by deliberately designing features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children to its platforms. The majority of cases filed their lawsuits in federal court, but some sued in their respective states.
TikTok also faces similar lawsuits in more than a dozen states.
