Meta Platforms and Google-owned YouTube are facing accusations in a California court of deliberately designing addictive products for children as a closely watched U.S. social media trial opened Monday.
The case, now before a Los Angeles jury, could set a legal precedent on whether major platforms intentionally engineered addiction among young users, Agence France-Presse reported.
At the center of the trial is a 20-year-old woman identified as Kaley G.M., who alleges she suffered severe mental harm after becoming addicted to social media as a child.
The case is being treated as a bellwether proceeding, with its outcome expected to influence hundreds of similar lawsuits across the United States and shape potential payouts to successful plaintiffs.
In his opening statement, plaintiffs’ attorney Mark Lanier told jurors, “This case is about two of the richest corporations in history who have engineered addiction in children’s brains.”
“This case is as easy as A-B-C,” Lanier said, explaining that the A stood for addicting, the B for brains, and the C for children.
“They don’t only build apps; they build traps,” he added, accusing Meta and YouTube of pursuing “addiction by design.”
Lanier told jurors that Kaley began watching YouTube at age six because the company never told her mother, “the goal was viewer addiction.”
He also alleged that toddlers as young as two were being targeted, despite what he described as a “critical” risk of addiction.
The proceedings are expected to include testimony from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg next week. Instagram head Adam Mosseri could appear in court as early as Wednesday.
Meta’s platforms include Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp.
Meta attorney Paul Schmidt rejected the claims, telling jurors that problems within the plaintiff’s family and real-world bullying harmed her self-esteem, body image, and happiness, not Instagram.
“If you took Instagram away and everything else was the same in Kaley’s life, would her life be completely different, or would she still be struggling with the same things she is today?” Schmidt asked.
He also said that an Instagram addiction is never mentioned in medical records included as evidence in the case.
Social media companies face hundreds of lawsuits accusing them of leading young users to addiction and contributing to depression, eating disorders, psychiatric hospitalization, and suicide.
Plaintiffs’ lawyers have drawn parallels to litigation against the tobacco industry in the 1990s and 2000s, when companies were accused of knowingly selling harmful products.
“This is the first time that a social media company has ever had to face a jury for harming kids,” said Matthew Bergman, founder of the Social Media Victims Law Center.
Bergman’s team is involved in more than 1,000 similar cases, according to the report.
Internet companies have long argued they are shielded from liability by Section 230 of the U.S. Communications Decency Act, which limits responsibility for user-generated content.
The plaintiffs argue, however, that the companies are responsible for business models designed to hold users’ attention and promote content that can harm mental health.
They said they will call expert witnesses who will argue that young people’s brains are not yet developed enough to withstand the power of algorithms used by Instagram and YouTube.
Meta pointed to recent efforts to strengthen safeguards for young users, saying “we’re always working to do better.”
Jose Castaneda, a YouTube spokesperson, said “the allegations in these complaints are simply not true.”
Lawyers for YouTube are expected to present opening statements to the jury on Tuesday.
Snapchat and TikTok were also named as defendants but reached settlement agreements before the trial began. The terms were not disclosed.
The case unfolds as similar lawsuits, including those filed by school districts, move through federal court in Northern California and state courts across the country.
A separate lawsuit accusing Meta of putting profit over the well-being of young users also began Monday in New Mexico.
