Two teenage plaintiffs who say social media caused serious mental health problems will take Meta Platforms and Snap to trial in Los Angeles on Wednesday, in the latest test of claims raised in thousands of US lawsuits over the impact of social media on young people.
The case is only the second involving individual plaintiffs to reach trial over allegations that social media companies deliberately designed their platforms to be addictive. The companies lost the first such trial in March, when a jury awarded $6 million in damages.
The plaintiffs, identified in court documents as S.J., a 16-year-old girl from Illinois, and K.D.B., an 18-year-old woman from Mississippi, said they began using YouTube at the age of three or four and other platforms at around nine. They allege that features such as autoplay and infinite scrolling encouraged compulsive use, contributing to depression, anxiety and eating disorders.
The trial begins with jury selection and is expected to last several weeks. Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, Instagram head Adam Mosseri and Snap chief executive Evan Spiegel are expected to testify.
The plaintiffs initially sued TikTok and YouTube, owned by Alphabet, alongside Meta and Snap. Both companies reached settlements with the plaintiffs before the trial. The Illinois plaintiff also settled her claims against Meta. The proceedings will therefore cover both plaintiffs' claims against Snap and the Mississippi plaintiff's claims against Meta.
Meta and Snap have asked Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carolyn Kuhl to separate the cases, arguing that a joint trial would risk confusing jurors by combining different sets of evidence. The judge has yet to rule on the request.
A Young Person's Mental Health
A Meta spokesperson said the company disagreed with the allegations and had spent a decade developing protections across its platforms, including Instagram and Facebook.
"A young person's mental health is shaped by many factors, as the evidence in this trial will show," the spokesperson said in a statement. "The plaintiff used TikTok far more than Instagram or Facebook, and her personal circumstances were a substantial factor in her struggles."
A Snap spokesperson argued that Snapchat differed from conventional social media platforms because it did not open with a feed or a ranking of other people's posts. The company had also introduced safeguards to protect users, the spokesperson said.
"We believe the evidence will support that we have put our community first, and that these allegations fundamentally misrepresent their experiences on Snapchat and how our platform was designed," the spokesperson added.
Emily Jeffcott, a lawyer representing the Mississippi plaintiff, said before the trial that she looked forward to explaining to the jury the risks associated with features such as endless feeds, autoplay and streaks, which encourage users to maintain consecutive days of activity.
She alleged that Meta, and Snap as well, had implemented and promoted such features in ways that contributed to the plaintiffs' experiences.
A Test Case For Thousands Of Claims
S.J. and K.D.B. filed their lawsuits in 2023. Both described spending hours scrolling through social media late at night, struggling to concentrate in class and engaging in self-harm using methods they had seen in social media videos. They are seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
Their cases form part of a wider group of more than 3,000 lawsuits brought by individuals and others that have been consolidated in Los Angeles Superior Court. The cases have been selected as bellwethers, or test cases, meaning their outcomes could influence negotiations and the resolution of other claims.
Social media companies have denied designing their platforms to addict young users, maintaining that they have taken steps to improve safety for children and teenagers. They have also argued that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a 1996 federal law that generally shields online platforms from liability for user-generated content, protects them from the claims.
The trial judge rejected the argument that Section 230 automatically bars claims concerning platform design, allowing the two cases to proceed.
In the March trial, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and YouTube negligent in a case brought by a young woman identified in court documents as Kaley G.M. Several other cases have been scheduled for trial since then, but companies have settled some claims, while plaintiffs have withdrawn others.
School Districts And States Join Legal Fight
More than 3,800 lawsuits brought by states, school districts and individuals over similar allegations remain pending in federal court in California, according to court records.
In August, Meta reached settlements worth up to $18 billion to resolve claims brought by nearly every US state and territory concerning the impact of its platforms on teenagers' mental health. As part of the agreement, the company committed to changing how teenagers can access Instagram and Facebook.
Following the settlement, members of Meta's senior legal team told reporters that the company considered individual and school district lawsuits more difficult to defend against at trial than cases brought by states. The former require plaintiffs to establish a direct link between particular harm and the company's social media platforms, they said.
Meta is appealing the March verdict, arguing that Section 230 should have prevented the claims brought by Kaley G.M. from proceeding.
A ruling in Meta's favour on that issue could undermine thousands of lawsuits concerning young people's mental health and protect the company from billions of dollars in potential liability. Experts have warned that the financial exposure identified by the company could pose a serious threat to its future.
The latest trial will test whether plaintiffs can persuade a jury that the design of social media platforms contributed directly to their mental health problems, despite the companies' arguments that individual circumstances and other factors must also be considered. Its outcome could help determine the legal and financial stakes of a growing challenge to the technology industry's approach to young users.
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