After nearly five weeks of testimony, a Los Angeles civil trial examining whether large major social media platforms, such as Instagram, were being deliberately designed to draw in young users and attempt to addict them to the software, has nearly reached its end.
The trial centers around a 20-year-old woman anonymously identified in court at “K.G.M”, who states that her early childhood use of platforms like YouTube and Instagram for prolonged periods of time contributed to her severe mental health struggles. She struggles with anxiety, depression, body dysmorphic disorder and even suicidal ideation, and believes that these platforms were both the cause of the problems and only made them worse. The lawsuit that she imposed targets many major tech companies, like Meta, who chose to defend themselves in court, while some other companies chose to settle before the trial.
In this week’s closing statement, the plaintiff’s attorney Mark Lanier framed the social media companies as intentionally exploiting their patrons. Lanier utilized a metaphorical expression of social media companies as lions or predators, stalking wounded gazelle, or the vulnerable users utilizing the platform. “They never go after the strongest, never go after the boldest,” Lanier told jurors in the court. “They find the one that’s weaker, that’s more vulnerable, and that’s the one they get.” In this description, the plaintiff is represented as a gazelle, one of the vulnerable targets mentioned. Someone who had preexisting struggles that were intensified by the intentionally addictive design of these apps.
Lanier also emphasizes that this case is not an absolute case, stating that social media was the sole cause of harm within Ms. K.G.M’s life, but rather the existence of its intentionally addictive design only worsened her existing condition. Lanier stated “We’re not asserting that [social media is the only cause of her problems]. We’re saying the problematic use, the addiction, is something that has specifically worsened any kind of problems she ever had.”
On the other hand, the defense believed that her existing condition painted a very different picture of why the plaintiff had the issues she had. The tech company’s attorneys argued that the plaintiff’s mental health challenges primarily were due to factors largely unrelated to social media, including a genetic predisposition to mental illness and family instability. A defense lawyer for one of the tech companies stated, “We did not design the platform to harm anyone,” acting as a blanket statement to deny the claims.
One of the main points of contention within the trial has been the idea of something called “social media addiction” which remains loosely defined and is something heavily debated within the medical community. The defense cited one psychiatrist who treated the plaintiff for over two years, who believed that social media was not the primary driver of her struggles. “I think social media played some part. It is not the part that I felt was the majority of the issue.” He said. Instead, he mentioned the interpersonal conflicts and family dynamics as more central concerns towards Ms. K.G.M’s life.
Even still, the plaintiff’s legal team argued that internal company documents reveal awareness of the risks of the social media algorithms, particularly for younger or more vulnerable users. According to Lanier, the documents reveal that companies fully understand how their platforms have the potential to harm users but continue to use the algorithm to prioritize user engagement.
Furthermore, the plaintiff’s personal testimony added more emotion to the claims. She described herself as beginning her use of YouTube at 6-years-old and developing poor habits like frequent posting, resulting in bullying from peers and people online, to which she made many fake accounts to like and subscribe to her own content. “Being off of it bothered me more than the comments and the bullying,” she told the court. These implications reveal that social media likely had some impact on the plaintiff’s mental state, according to Lanier.
Ultimately, the jury must decide whether the platforms contributed significantly to the plaintiff’s harm and further must decide whether that harm was caused by deliberate design or by circumstances beyond the control of the tech companies behind the social media software.
