Landmark social media addiction trial heads to jury

LOS ANGELES (CN) — After a monthlong trial, attorneys in a first-of-its kind case over mental health harms to teenagers from social media apps delivered their final arguments to the jury.

“When you’re making money off kids, you have to do it responsibly,” attorney Mark Lanier, representing the bellwether plaintiff in the case, known in court as Kaley GM, told the jury. “We’re looking for justice, and not a penny more. But not a penny less.”

Attorney for social media giant Meta, Paul Schmidt, argued that far from being the “addiction machine” Lanier said it was, social media actually played a positive role in Kaley’s life and Kaley’s depression came largely from her troubled upbringing.

“If you took Instagram away, would anything be different?” Schmidt asked. “That’s the core question in this case.”

And tech behemoth Google had a much simpler message for the jury. “YouTube did not create a product that harmed Ms. GM. She’s not addicted to YouTube,” attorney Luis Li said.

The jury will begin deliberating Friday morning. They’ll be tasked with deciding whether or not Meta, Google or both were negligent in designing or operating Instagram and YouTube; and if the companies knew or should have known their design or operation was dangerous or likely to be dangerous when used by a minor. They’ll also be asked if the companies failed to warn Kaley about the potential dangers of their products.

Should the jury answer yes to either of those questions, they will then assign a dollar figure to be paid by either Meta, Google or both, to Kaley. They will also have the opportunity to award punitive damages, which would be determined in a second, shorter phase of the trial.

Kaley’s case is the first of roughly 1,600 filed against Meta and Google, along with TikTok and Snap — the two of which reached private, undisclosed settlements with Kaley in the weeks leading up to her trial, but they remain as defendants in the overall, consolidated litigation.

As a bellwether case, the verdict in Kaley’s trial could go toward determining a global settlement. A finding of no liability, or even a relatively small judgment, would be seen as a huge win for social media companies, which have fallen under heavy criticism by parents, activists and even the U.S. Surgeon General.

A large judgement may force major reforms and could even lead to some companies going into bankruptcy. There are eight other bellwether trials planned as part of this litigation, with the next one scheduled to start in the summer.

Design liability

The trial focused on Google’s YouTube, Meta’s Instagram and their affects on the now-20-year-old Kaley, who testified social media became a daily obsession.

“Every single day I was on it, all day long,” Kaley testified in February. “I just can’t be without it.”

The trial also featured the testimony of Instagram chief Adam Mosseri — who denied the existence of social media addiction — as well as the testimony of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who defending his company, saying, “We’re building this thing to be a good thing that has value in people’s lives."

Until recently, social media companies have been shielded from nearly all liability by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects online platforms from litigation over user content.

But plaintiffs in this mass tort successfully pushed a novel theory that tech companies can still be held liable for their design features.

Superior Court Judge Carolyn Kuhl ruled online bullying Kaley was subjected to qualifies as “third-party content” companies cannot be held liable for. But they can be held liable for their algorithms, for notifications, likes, “infinite scroll” or “autoplay,” and “filters,” which alter the appearance of a subject in photographs.

Perspectives on a bellwether plaintiff

Lanier argued that if social media was coping mechanism, it was a “maladaptive coping mechanism, like cigarettes" that had come to do just as much harm to Kaley as other traumas in her life, altering her brain chemistry. Notifications and “likes” had kept her up at night, he said, and made her anxious about her real-world social connections; beauty filters made her feel overweight and ugly.

“Social media rewires the brain,” Lanier, a folksy, excitable Texan who moonlights as a pastor, and who lost his voice toward the end of the trial, said.

He compared the two tech giants to lions in the Serengeti looking for weaker gazelles, just as Meta and Google were looking for vulnerable minors, like Kaley, who experienced physical and emotional abuse while growing up, and who suffered from depression from a young age.

He said YouTube was a gateway drug, comparing the world’s most popular streaming platform to a guide in the dense jungle, hacking away at growth with a machete, clearing a trail for others to follow — creating pathways in the brain that made teenagers susceptible to addiction.

“YouTube was [Kaley’s] gateway,” he said.

Li noted Kaley’s YouTube usage peaked when she was eight years old and then petered out, as she became drawn to other platforms.

“This was not rewiring her brain,” Li said. “This was a toy that Ms. GM picked up and put down a decade ago.” He said Kaley’s YouTube use had waned by the time that many of its design features, like autoplay, had even been created.

“You can’t get addicted on something that didn’t exist,” Li said.

Schmidt made a different argument: other things had caused Kaley’s anxiety and depression, particularly her tumultuous home life and particularly her mother. He replayed for the jury a recording by Kaley, in which her mother can be heard shrieking at her: “… cry and cause a big scene cause you didn’t get your way? Fucking pissing me off…”

During her testimony, Kaley defended her mother, saying the video had been taken out of context, and other social media posts about her mom’s behavior was Kaley “being dramatic.”

Schmidt argued most of Kaley’s medical records focused on her rocky relationship with her parents and sister, who attempted suicide when Kaley was young and who was hospitalized for an eating disorder before Kaley struggled with her own body dysmorphia.

As for social media use, Schmidt quoted a psychiatrist who testified, “that was not the through line of what I recall being her main issues.”

“There’s a basic disconnect between what they’re trying to persuade you and what the facts tell us,” Schmidt said.

Lanier countered by pointing out that one medical record from an emergency room visit stated Kaley had reported “suicidal ideation because her mother took her phone away.”

The attorney did not suggest a dollar amount for the jury to award, but he did argue Kaley was entitled to punitive damages, saying: “They clearly knew what they were doing.”

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