California Jury Holds Meta, YouTube Liable in Child's Social Media Addiction Case

A California jury found Meta and YouTube liable for harm caused to a child user in a first-of-its-kind social media addiction trial. The verdict came March 25 after more than 40 hours of deliberation across nine days.

The plaintiff, a 20-year-old woman identified in court documents as KGM — referred to as Kaley by her attorneys — began using YouTube at age six and Instagram at age nine. She described being on social media "all day long" as a child. Her legal team, led by attorney Mark Lanier, argued that specific platform design features — including infinite-scroll feeds, autoplay functions and push notifications — were engineered to addict young users. TikTok and Snap each settled before the trial began, leaving Meta and Google-owned YouTube as the remaining defendants. Jurors heard roughly a month of testimony, including appearances by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram head Adam Mosseri.

For families in Martin, St. Lucie and Indian River counties, the verdict carries immediate relevance. Parents, pediatricians and school counselors across the Treasure Coast have raised sustained alarms about adolescent mental health and screen-time dependency — concerns that mirror the harm alleged in this case. The ruling could open legal pathways for Florida families with similar claims and may accelerate legislative pressure on platforms that serve millions of Florida minors.

The jury was instructed that plaintiffs needed only to prove social media use was a "substantial factor" in causing harm — not the sole cause — bypassing Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which shields platforms from liability for user-generated content. Meta argued that Kaley's mental health struggles predated and were independent of her social media use, stating that "not one of her therapists identified social media as the cause" of her difficulties. YouTube contended it functions as a video platform comparable to television, not a social network, and cited data showing Kaley averaged roughly one minute per day on YouTube Shorts.

Attorney Laura Marquez-Garrett of the Social Media Victims Law Center, counsel of record for Kaley, called the case "a vehicle, not an outcome" and said it was "historic" for placing Meta and Google's internal documents into the public record. "They're not going to change because they're making too much money killing kids," Marquez-Garrett said.

The case was selected as a bellwether trial, meaning its outcome will influence how thousands of similar lawsuits against social media companies proceed nationwide. Damages have not yet been determined, and additional trials against the platforms are scheduled for later this year.

This article was generated with AI assistance using publicly available information. It was reviewed and approved by a human editor before publication. TC Sentinel uses AI writing tools in accordance with FTC guidelines.