Jury holds Meta and Google liable for role in young woman’s mental health issues
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
A jury in Los Angeles today delivered a verdict that could reshape the social media industry. The jury found Meta and Google responsible for the anxiety and depression that a young woman felt as a result of using social media since she was a small child. Here's her lawyer, Mark Lanier, speaking after the verdict.
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MARK LANIER: We've sent a message with this that you will be held accountable just because of the features alone that drive addiction. That's a huge message for these companies.
CHANG: But the stakes are much bigger than this one case. NPR's Bobby Allyn was inside the courtroom when the verdict came down and joins us now. Hi, Bobby.
BOBBY ALLYN, BYLINE: Hey, Ailsa.
CHANG: OK, so what was it like in there when the jury handed down its decision?
ALLYN: So this came on the ninth day of jury deliberation, so everyone who's been waiting has really been anticipating this moment. The jury came out. The jury foreperson read the verdict. We're all waiting. What is it going to say? What is it going to say? And on every single count, the jury found YouTube and Instagram liable for causing harm to this young woman who became addicted to social media. And what the jury verdict says, essentially, is that these tech companies deliberately designed their products to hook young people and to keep them addicted. And total damages awarded to her, $6 million.
CHANG: Wait. What I want to understand is the young woman at the center of this case, who goes by Kaley, I understand. She's now 20 years old, right? And she said she started using Instagram when she was just 11 years old. Isn't that against Meta's terms of service?
ALLYN: Yeah. And this was a major part of the trial, which is how many young people below the stated, you know, minimum age are using the platform. And when Mark Zuckerberg got on the stand and was read internal emails back to him, that basically demonstrated that the company has been aggressively pursuing teens and preteens to get on Instagram and to keep them there, even though, like you said, they have a policy of saying, you know, you've got to be at least 13 years old to use this app. So that was part of the argument the lawyers made as a way of demonstrating that these companies really were after young people, really wanted to keep them there. And now we have a really resounding, historic verdict that is tied to 2,000 other cases that have been consolidated over this question of social media addiction.
CHANG: Well, this isn't the only jury verdict affecting social media in the past 24 hours, right? There was a separate case in New Mexico. Tell us what happened there yesterday.
ALLYN: Yeah, the New Mexico case is related but a little different. And it is about whether Meta protected young people from child predators and sexually explicit content on its platforms. And they found that they did not, right? So with that historic payout and verdict combined with this one today, I mean, this week has just seen two verdicts that have been in the works, Ailsa, for years and years and years.
CHANG: Yeah.
ALLYN: It's really a day of reckoning for social media companies. And the plaintiffs' lawyers have been outside the courtroom and saying today is sort of like the reckoning that the big tobacco industry had in the late '90s, the legal crusade that led to industry-wide changes. And they're hoping eventually that that's what happens on social media in the coming years.
CHANG: Well, let's talk about that reckoning because hundreds of millions of people use social media every day. So how could this verdict change the way people use apps like Facebook or Instagram or YouTube, you think?
ALLYN: Yeah, so this was just the story of one woman and her struggles, and how social media led to a lot of those mental health struggles like depression and anxiety and body image issues. But really, this case, as you mentioned, is tied to thousands of others that have been consolidated into one case that are sort of waiting to see the outcome of this one. This is what's known as a bellwether. It's a test case. Now we're going to move, Ailsa, to see how all of those thousands of cases will settle, right?
CHANG: Yeah.
ALLYN: And I would say this verdict gives plaintiffs a lot of leverage to say, hey, we're not going to conclude these thousands of cases until you make platform-wide changes that change the fundamental fabric of social media for young people.
And in response, Meta and Google said they both will appeal. In a statement that just came down from Meta, they say that teen mental health is profoundly complex and cannot be tied to a single app, and they defend all of the protections that they have in place to keep young users safe.
CHANG: That is NPR's Bobby Allyn. Thank you, Bobby.
ALLYN: Thanks, Ailsa.
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