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A historic ruling finding Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta and YouTube parent Google liable for fueling teen social media addiction could open the floodgates for an unprecedented legal crackdown on Big Tech, critics told The Post.
Following nine days of deliberations, a Los Angeles jury ruled Wednesday in favor of a 20-year-old woman known only as “KGM,” who said apps like Facebook and Instagram wrecked her mental health after she became addicted to them as a teen.
The woman was awarded $3 million in compensatory damages and another $3 million in punitive damages, with Meta paying 70% and Google, 30%.
Critics say the bombshell verdict could be just the start of a costly headache for Meta and Google, which still face thousands of pending lawsuits across federal and state courts that could result in more penalties — as well as pending legislation on Capitol Hill, such as the Kids Online Safety Act — which would rein in their behavior.
“The era of Big Tech invincibility is over – this ruling is an earthquake that shakes Big Tech’s predatory business model to its core,” said Sacha Haworth, executive director of the Tech Oversight Project, an online safety watchdog.
“These products were purposefully designed to harm, addict millions of young people, and lead to lifelong mental health consequences,” Haworth added.
The legal shield that has long protected social media firms from harm is now “gone,” said Jonathan Haidt, a Big Tech critic and host of the best-seller “The Anxious Generation.”
“They will be treated like any industry that knowingly harms children and lies about it,” he wrote on X. “History will judge them as harshly as the tobacco industry.”
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), a frequent critic of Big Tech, called the verdict “a monumental victory for parents, children, families, and survivors.”
“Now that Big Tech has been found liable for the harms they have pushed on our kids, it’s time for Congress to enshrine protections for American families into law by passing the Kids Online Safety Act,” she added.
That legislation would ban targeted advertising to minors and data collection without their consent, among other steps.
In its Wednesday verdict, the LA jury found that Meta and Google acted with malice or highly egregious conduct.
The crux of KGM’s case focused on the notion that the social media apps were intentionally designed to be addictive while implementing features like an “infinite scroll” and video autoplay.
The closely watched trial featured testimony from Zuckerberg and Instagram chief Adam Mosseri. As The Post exclusively reported, Meta tried to block KGM’s lawyers from asking Zuckerberg about his massive $231 billion fortune on the witness stand.
Both Google and Meta said they disagreed with the verdict and would appeal.
“Teen mental health is profoundly complex and cannot be linked to a single app,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement. “We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously as every case is different, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online.”
“This case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site,” a Google spokesperson said.
This summer, Meta and Google will be back in a California federal court as part of a complicated federal multidistrict litigation – a process meant to consolidate more than 2,000 pending lawsuits against the social media firms that make similar allegations.
A group of school districts from around the country have a trial date in June, while a coalition of state attorneys general will get their day in court in August.
“This verdict sends an unmistakable message that no company is above accountability when it comes to our children,” attorneys for the school districts said in a statement on the KGM case.
The LA verdict was announced just one day after Meta lost a separate case in New Mexico, which state prosecutors accused Zuckerberg’s firm of exposing kids to online sex creeps and failing to adequately warn parents about safety risks associated with social media use.
Meta was slapped with a $375 million penalty in that case for violating state law.