Meta and Google Lose Landmark Case on Social Media Addiction

A 20-year-old woman in California who sued Meta and Google, claiming the tech giants had created a harmful and addictive product for kids, won her lawsuit on Wednesday. The jury has awarded the woman, identified as Kaley G.M., $3 million according to the Wall Street Journal.

The woman said that Meta’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube had contributed to mental health problems she had as a child, including anxiety, depression, and body dysmorphia. Meta has previously argued that she had mental health issues that predated her exposure to Instagram.

“We respectfully disagree with the verdict and are evaluating our legal options,” a Meta spokesperson told Gizmodo in an email Wednesday.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was forced to take the stand in Los Angeles Superior Court where he was asked if Meta intentionally tried to hook kids on its products. The woman who said she was harmed by Instagram joined as a child and her lawyers presented internal slides from 2015 that showed over 4 million Instagram users in the U.S. were under the age of 13. Instagram didn’t start asking for a user’s age until 2019.

The head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, also testified at the trial and got headlines for saying that he didn’t think 16 hours of Instagram use per day should be considered an addiction. Mosseri preferred the term “problematic” use.

This is a breaking story and this article will be updated.