Meta and Google-owned YouTube have been accused of deliberately designing their platforms to addict children, as a landmark trial began in a California court on Monday.
The blockbuster case before a Los Angeles jury could establish a legal precedent on whether social media companies knowingly created addictive products that harm young users.
“This case is about two of the richest corporations in history who have engineered addiction in children’s brains,” plaintiffs’ attorney Mark Lanier told the jury in his opening statement.
The trial focuses on allegations that a 20-year-old woman identified as Kaley G.M. suffered severe mental harm after becoming addicted to social media as a child. Judge Carolyn Kuhl is presiding over the case.
Lanier used props including toy blocks, a miniature Ferrari and a slot machine to illustrate his argument that Meta and YouTube pursued “addiction by design”.
“This case is as easy as A-B-C,” he said, stacking children’s blocks bearing the letters. “They don’t only build apps; they build traps.”
The plaintiffs’ legal team claims Kaley began watching YouTube at six years old because the company never told her mother “the goal was viewer addiction”, or that toddlers as young as two were being targeted despite a risk of addiction.
This is the first time that a social media company has ever had to face a jury for harming kids.
Meta attorney Paul Schmidt countered that evidence will show problems in the plaintiff’s family and real-world bullying affected her well-being rather than Instagram.
“If you took Instagram away and everything else was the same in Kaley’s life, would her life be completely different, or would she still be struggling with the same things she is today?” Schmidt asked the jury.
He noted that an Instagram addiction is never mentioned in medical records included in the evidence.
The proceedings are expected to see Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg take the stand next week, with Instagram boss Adam Mosseri appearing in court as early as Wednesday. Meta’s platforms include Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp.
The case is being treated as a bellwether proceeding because its outcome could set the tone and level of pay-outs for hundreds of similar lawsuits across the United States.
Social media firms face accusations in numerous lawsuits of leading young users to become addicted to content and suffer from depression, eating disorders, psychiatric hospitalisation and even suicide.
“This is the first time that a social media company has ever had to face a jury for harming kids,” said Matthew Bergman, founder of Social Media Victims Law Centre, whose team is involved in more than 1 000 such cases.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs are borrowing strategies used against the tobacco industry in the 1990s and 2000s, when companies faced lawsuits arguing they knowingly sold a harmful product.
Internet companies have argued they are shielded by Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act, which frees them from responsibility for what users post.
However, this case argues that firms are culpable for business models designed to hold people’s attention and promote content that can harm mental health.
The plaintiffs said they would call expert witnesses to argue that young people’s brains are not yet developed to withstand the power of algorithms on Instagram and YouTube.
Meta pointed to recent efforts to provide more safeguards for young people, adding that “we’re always working to do better”.
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Jose Castaneda, a YouTube spokesperson, said “the allegations in these complaints are simply not true”. Lawyers for YouTube are to present opening remarks to the jury on Tuesday.
Snapchat and TikTok were named as defendants in the suit but struck settlement deals before the trial started. The terms were not disclosed.
Lawsuits, including some brought by school districts, accusing social media platforms of practices endangering young users are making their way through federal court in northern California and state courts across the country.
A separate lawsuit accusing Meta of putting profit over the well-being of young users was also getting under way in New Mexico on Monday.
