US EditionJury finds Instagram and YouTube liable in landmark social media addiction trial
A Los Angeles jury held Meta and YouTube negligent for addictive platform designs harming a minor and awarded $3 million, with Meta assigned 70% of the blame.
- On Wednesday, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and Google-owned YouTube negligent in designing addictive platforms, awarding plaintiff Kaley G.M. $3 million in compensatory damages—70% to Meta, 30% to YouTube—and finding the companies acted with malice.
- The bellwether trial, which began in January in Los Angeles Superior Court, examined claims that features like "infinite scroll" and autoplay were intentionally designed to hook young users, which Kaley alleged fueled her anxiety and depression.
- Internal documents revealed Meta researchers found 11-year-olds were four times more likely to return to Instagram than competing apps, though defendants argued Kaley's struggles stemmed from a turbulent childhood rather than their platforms.
- A separate proceeding will determine punitive damages after the jury found the companies acted with egregious conduct; this follows a Tuesday decision ordering Meta to pay $375 million in a similar New Mexico child safety case.
- Experts compare this 'Big Tobacco' moment to 1990s tobacco litigation, as the verdict could influence thousands of pending suits from school districts and families, signaling tech firms may increasingly face liability for platform design.
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March 26, 2026 – Los Angeles, U.S.A. – EFE. A Los Angeles court has issued an unprecedented ruling declaring Meta and YouTube companies responsible for causing mental health damage to minors. This court decision arises out of a lawsuit that directly links the use of these digital platforms to the development of addictive behaviors in children and adolescents. As an immediate result of the ruling, technology companies will have to face the paymen…
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stuff.co.zaMeta and Google just lost a landmark social media addiction case. A tech law expert explains the fallout
Social media platforms Instagram and YouTube have a design defect which means they are addictive, a jury in the United States has ruled. The Los Angeles
Pulse of Politics: Discussing the Meta/YouTube verdict
A jury orders Meta and YouTube to pay a woman millions of dollars after she said the platforms were designed to hook young users without concern for their well-being. Social media expert and founder of Lloyd: A Media Production Company discusses what this means for social media as a whole.
Here’s how Canada and other nations could be impacted by U.S. court ruling
Wednesday’s court ruling, finding tech giants Meta and YouTube liable for social media addiction, could have far-reaching impacts on how social media companies operate and how consumers use the apps. Some experts are calling the ruling tech’s “big tobacco moment.”
Meta’s Big Court Defeat Has Huge Implications for Lawsuits Against the AI Industry
Tech giants Meta and Google-owned YouTube suffered a devastating legal blow yesterday after losing a landmark social media addiction trial, a watershed outcome that’s likely to reverberate across the social media industry — and shrapnel from that fallout could hit AI companies, too. In the case characterized by some as Big Tech’s “Big Tobacco moment,” a jury found that Meta and YouTube caused a young woman to develop suffer life-altering mental …
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