Zuckerberg will testify in trial about social media addiction

Businessman Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of Facebook and Meta, was summoned to testify this Wednesday in a historic trial in Los Angeles about social media addiction. This is the first time Zuckerberg has faced a jury regarding the design of his products. The trial, which has entered its second week, stems from a lawsuit against technology giants Meta and Google, brought by a young woman who accuses Instagram and YouTube of harming her mental health due to the addictive effect of these applications.

Zuckerberg is expected to appear in Los Angeles Superior Court in the first of a series of landmark cases against social media platforms brought by individuals and entities who argue the technology can be as harmful and addictive as casinos and cigarettes.

The 20-year-old author of the civil action, identified as KGM, accuses Meta, the parent company of Instagram, and Google, the parent company of YouTube (Alphabet), of creating an addiction to social networks during her childhood and adolescence, which, as a consequence, led her to suffer from depression, low self-esteem, anxiety and suicidal thoughts. The young woman claims to have started using these social networks before she was 10 years old. The process focuses on the design of platforms, which aim to capture users’ attention and create dependency. “She became obsessed with these platforms; her mental health deteriorated. Her childhood, and consequently her adult life, deviated from normal development,” said Mark Lanier, KGM’s lawyer, at the trial, according to CNN.

Zuckerberg is one of the technology executives expected to testify at the trial, the first in a series of lawsuits seeking to hold major social media companies accountable. The outcome of KGM’s lawsuit could set a precedent for the resolution of approximately 1,500 similar lawsuits against social media companies in the US. The trial is expected to last at least six weeks. The young woman also sued Snapchat and TikTok. However, both companies reached an out-of-court settlement before the trial in January.