Testimony has started in the ongoing legal case in California that could set major precedent for claiming damages against major social media companies for their platform’s supposedly addictive nature.
The lawsuit was filed in 2023 by a now-20-year-old woman identified as K.G.M. against YouTube, TikTok, Snap, Inc. (the parent company of Snapchat) and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram. It claims these social media companies maintained knowingly addictive platforms and did little to protect the mental health of younger users. K.G.M. argues she suffered from body dysmorphia, anxiety and depression because of the compulsive use caused by the platforms she started using as a child.
YouTube and Meta are the only two companies named in the lawsuit still on trial. TikTok and Snap reached undisclosed settlements with K.G.M. TikTok’s settlement came hours before the jury was selected on Jan. 27. Snap settled the week prior.
For K.G.M. to win her lawsuit against YouTube and Meta, her lawyer, Mark Lanier, who has experience litigating against major companies such as pharma company Johnson & Johnson, will have to prove to the jury that the tech companies neglected to protect children from developing an addiction to their platforms.
Lanier has so far drawn comparisons between YouTube and Meta’s practices to those of casinos and the tobacco industry—whose business models relied on repeated habitual use by consumers. For social media companies, the addicting feature of their business model comes in the form of infinite scrolling and autoplay.
In his opening, Lanier presented internal YouTube and Meta documents going back to 2011 where employees discuss strategies to appeal to minors and keep them on throughout their life. One document from Google, YouTube’s parent company, explicitly called their platform “attention casinos” and “slot machines.”
Lawyers for Meta are countering that K.G.M.’s mental health issues were not caused by their platforms, but by familial abuse. They note that K.G.M. has been in therapy since she was 3 years old, and social media addiction was never the focus of any of her therapy sessions. K.G.M. started using YouTube at age 8 and Instagram at age 9.
Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri was the first witness to testify in the trial and stated that the platform was not “clinically addictive” and any purported addiction was closer to being immersed in a good television show. He also pointed to new features on Instagram implemented under his leadership including age-based content restrictions and muting notifications at night on teenagers’ accounts.
YouTube has argued it is closer to a streaming service than a social media platform and is not addictive.
The outcome of K.G.M.’s lawsuit could weigh heavily on other cases brought by parents and state attorneys general alleging harm and negligence caused by social media companies.
Historically, tech companies have used a federal statute known as Section 230 to dismiss lawsuits alleging harmful practices. This part of the 1996 Communications Decency Act exempts platforms from liability stemming from user uploaded content. K.G.M.’s lawsuit has been the exception to this and could result in social media companies changing the design of their platforms.
