Landmark trial accusing social media companies of addicting children to their platforms begins

LOS ANGELES — The world's biggest social media companies face several landmark trials this year that seek to hold them responsible for harms to children who use their platforms. Opening statements in one such trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court began on Monday.

Instagram's parent company Meta and Google's YouTube face claims that their platforms deliberately addict and harm children. TikTok and Snap, which were originally named in the lawsuit, settled for undisclosed sums.

Jurors got their first glimpse into what will be a lengthy trial characterized by dueling narratives from the plaintiffs and the two remaining social media companies named as defendants.

Meta lawyer Paul Schmidt spoke of the disagreement within the scientific community over social media addiction, with some believing it doesn't exist or that addiction is not the most appropriate way to describe heavy social media use.

‘Addicting the brains of children'

Mark Lanier delivered the opening statement for the plaintiffs first, in a lively display where he said the case is as ''easy as ABC,'' which he said stands for ''addicting the brains of children.'' He called Meta and Google ''two of the richest corporations in history'' that have ''engineered addiction in children's brains.''

He presented jurors with a slew of internal emails, documents and studies conducted by Meta and YouTube, as well as YouTube's parent company, Google. He emphasized the findings of a study Meta conducted called ''Project Myst'' in which they surveyed 1,000 teens and their parents about their social media use. The two major findings, Lanier said, were that the company knew children who experienced ''adverse events'' like trauma and stress were particularly vulnerable for addiction; and that parental supervision and controls made little impact.

At the core of the Los Angeles case is a 20-year-old identified only by the initials ''KGM,'' whose case could determine how thousands of other, similar lawsuits against social media companies will play out. She and two other plaintiffs have been selected for bellwether trials — essentially test cases for both sides to see how their arguments play out before a jury.

Plaintiff grew up on YouTube, Instagram

KGM made a brief appearance after a break during Lanier's statement and she will return to testify later in the trial. Lanier spent time speaking about her childhood, and particularly focused on what her personality was like before she began using social media, saying her mother called her a ''creative spark'' as a child. She started using YouTube at age 6 and Instagram at age 9, Lanier said. Before she graduated elementary school, she had posted 284 videos on YouTube.

The outcome of the trial could have profound effects on the companies' businesses and how they will handle children using their platforms.

Lanier said the companies' lawyers will ''try to blame the little girl and her parents for the trap they built,'' referencing the plaintiff. She was a minor when she said she became addicted to social media platforms, which she claims had a detrimental impact on her mental health.

Lanier also drew comparisons between the social media companies and tobacco firms, citing internal communication between Meta employees who were concerned about the company's lack of proactive action about the potential harm their platforms can have on children and teens.

''For a teenager, social validation is survival,'' Lanier said. The defendants ''engineered a feature that caters to a minor's craving for social validation,'' he added, speaking about ''like'' buttons and similar features.

Meta pushes back

In his opening statement representing Meta, Schmidt said the core question in the case is whether the platforms were a substantial factor in KGM's mental health struggles. He spent much of his time going through the plaintiff's health records, emphasizing that she had experienced many difficult circumstances in her childhood, including emotional abuse, body image issues and bullying.

Schmidt presented a clip from a video deposition from one of KGM's mental health providers, Dr. Thomas Suberman, who said social media was ''not the throughline of what I recall being her main issues,'' adding that her struggles seemed to largely stem from interpersonal conflicts and relationships. He painted a picture of a particularly troubled relationship with her mother, with KGM's own words in text messages and testimony pointing to a volatile home life.

Schmidt emphasized to the jurors that the case is not about whether social media is a good thing, the content seen on social media, whether teens spend too much time on their phones or whether the jurors like or dislike Meta, but whether social media was a substantial factor in KGM's mental health struggles.

One case of thousands

''This was only the first case — there are hundreds of parents and school districts in the social media addiction trials that start today, and sadly, new families every day who are speaking out and bringing Big Tech to court for its deliberately harmful products,'' said Sacha Haworth, executive director of the nonprofit Tech Oversight Project.

Jurors are not being asked to stop using Facebook, Instagram, YouTube or any other forms of social media throughout the course of the trial — which is expected to last about eight weeks — but Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl emphasized that they should not make any changes to the way they interact with the platforms, including changing their settings or creating new accounts.

Kuhl said that jurors should decide the liability of Meta and YouTube independently when they deliberate.

KGM claims that her use of social media from an early age addicted her to the technology and exacerbated depression and suicidal thoughts. Importantly, the lawsuit claims that this was done through 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, which protects tech companies from liability for material posted on their platforms.

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 health care costs and restrict marketing targeting minors.

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.

A reckoning for social media and youth harms

A slew of trials beginning this year seek to hold social media companies responsible for harming children's mental well-being.

A federal bellwether 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.

Other countries, meanwhile, are enacting new laws to limit social media for children. In January, French lawmakers approved a bill banning social media for children under 15, paving the way for the measure to enter into force at the start of the next school year in September, as the idea of setting a minimum age for use of the platforms gains momentum across Europe. Australia has banned use of the platforms by kids under 16.

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