Arguments in a Landmark Social Media Addiction Trial Start Next Week. This Is What’s at Stake | EUROtoday

Google and Meta each deny the allegations within the criticism. “Providing young people with a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work,” mentioned Google spokesperson José Castañeda in an announcement. “In collaboration with youth, mental health, and parenting experts, we built services and policies to provide young people with age-appropriate experiences, and parents with robust controls.”

“For over a decade, we’ve listened to parents, worked with experts and law enforcement, and conducted in-depth research to understand the issues that matter most,” mentioned Meta spokesperson Stephanie Otway in an announcement. “We use these insights to make meaningful changes—like introducing Teen Accounts with built-in protections and providing parents with tools to manage their teens’ experiences.”

The Bellwether Case

Ok.G.M began watching YouTube on the age of six, had an Instagram account when she was 11, received on Snapchat at 13, and TikTok one 12 months after—with every app allegedly furthering “her spiral into anxiety and depression, fueled by low self-esteem and body dysmorphia,” based on her lawyer Joseph VanZandt. She, alongside along with her mom Karen Glenn, filed a lawsuit in opposition to Meta, Google’s YouTube, Snap, and TikTok alleging that options comparable to “autoplay” and “infinite scroll” contributed to her social media dependancy, and that social media use contributed to her anxiousness and despair, making her really feel extra insecure about herself. (Snap and TikTok settled the case with KGM earlier than the trial. Terms weren’t disclosed.)

Glenn testified final 12 months that she didn’t notice the hurt these platforms might do to her daughter, and that she wouldn’t have given her a cellphone if she’d recognized about these harms beforehand. Bergman says Ok.G.M’s lawsuit has been chosen because the “bellwether” case as a result of she is “representative of so many other young women who have suffered serious mental health harms and emotional ailments and disturbances as a consequence of social media.”

“The goal of the attorneys bringing these cases is not just to prevail and receive compensation for their individual clients,” says Benjamin Zipursky, a legislation professor at Fordham University School of Law. “They aim to get a series of victories in this sampling of so-called ‘bellwether trials.’ Then they will try to pressure the companies into a mass settlement in which they pay out potentially billions of dollars and also agree to change their practices.”

Ok.G.M’s is the primary of twenty-two such bellwether trials to be held within the superior courtroom of Los Angeles. A optimistic final result within the favor of the plaintiff might give the remaining roughly 1,600 litigants vital leverage—and doubtlessly drive tech firms to embrace new safeguards. The trial additionally guarantees to lift broader consciousness about social media enterprise fashions and practices. “If the public has a very negative reaction to what emerges, or what a jury finds, then this could affect legislation at the state or federal level,” Zipursky provides.

Bergman, who spent 25 years representing asbestos victims, says this trial appears like a repeat of what occurred up to now. “When Frances Haugen testified in front of Congress and for the first time revealed what social media companies know their platforms are doing to get vulnerable young people, I realized that this was asbestos all over again” says Bergman.

Dividing Lines

Seeking to attract parallels from product legal responsibility instances in opposition to Big Tobacco and the automotive business, the principal argument that the plaintiffs are alleging is that main tech firms designed their social media platforms in a negligent method, which means they didn’t take affordable steps to keep away from inflicting hurt. “Specifically, the plaintiffs are arguing that design features such as infinite scroll and autoplay caused certain injuries to minors, including disordered eating, self-harm, and suicide,” says Mary Anne Franks, a legislation professor at George Washington University.

On the opposite facet, the tech firms will seemingly give attention to causation and free speech defenses. “The defendants will argue that it was third-party content that caused the plaintiffs’ injuries, not the access to this content that was provided by the platforms,” says Franks. The firms can also seemingly argue, she says, “that to the extent the companies’ decision-making about content moderation is implicated, that decision-making is protected by the First Amendment,” citing the US Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling in Moody v. Netchoice.