Arguments in a Landmark Social Media Addiction Trial Start Next Week. This Is What’s at Stake
Google and Meta both deny the allegations in the complaint. “Providing young people with a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work,” said Google spokesperson José Castañeda in a statement. “In collaboration with youth, mental health, and parenting experts, we built services and policies to provide young people with age-appropriate experiences, and parents with robust controls.”
“For over a decade, we’ve listened to parents, worked with experts and law enforcement, and conducted in-depth research to understand the issues that matter most,” said Meta spokesperson Stephanie Otway in a statement. “We use these insights to make meaningful changes—like introducing Teen Accounts with built-in protections and providing parents with tools to manage their teens’ experiences.”
The Bellwether Case
K.G.M started watching YouTube at the age of six, had an Instagram account when she was 11, got on Snapchat at 13, and TikTok one year after—with each app allegedly furthering “her spiral into anxiety and depression, fueled by low self-esteem and body dysmorphia,” according to her attorney Joseph VanZandt. She, along with her mother Karen Glenn, filed a lawsuit against Meta, Google’s YouTube, Snap, and TikTok alleging that features such as “autoplay” and “infinite scroll” contributed to her social media addiction, and that social media use contributed to her anxiety and depression, making her feel more insecure about herself. (Snap and TikTok settled the case with KGM before the trial. Terms were not disclosed.)
Glenn testified last year that she did not realize the harm these platforms could do to her daughter, and that she wouldn’t have given her a phone if she’d known about these harms previously. Bergman says K.G.M’s lawsuit has been chosen as the “bellwether” case because she is “representative of so many other young women who have suffered serious mental health harms and emotional ailments and disturbances as a consequence of social media.”
“The goal of the attorneys bringing these cases is not just to prevail and receive compensation for their individual clients,” says Benjamin Zipursky, a law professor at Fordham University School of Law. “They aim to get a series of victories in this sampling of so-called ‘bellwether trials.’ Then they will try to pressure the companies into a mass settlement in which they pay out potentially billions of dollars and also agree to change their practices.”
K.G.M’s is the first of 22 such bellwether trials to be held in the superior court of Los Angeles. A positive outcome in the favor of the plaintiff could give the remaining roughly 1,600 litigants significant leverage—and potentially force tech companies to embrace new safeguards. The trial also promises to raise broader awareness about social media business models and practices. “If the public has a very negative reaction to what emerges, or what a jury finds, then this could affect legislation at the state or federal level,” Zipursky adds.
Bergman, who spent 25 years representing asbestos victims, says this trial feels like a repeat of what happened in the past. “When Frances Haugen testified in front of Congress and for the first time revealed what social media companies know their platforms are doing to get vulnerable young people, I realized that this was asbestos all over again” says Bergman.
Dividing Lines
Seeking to draw parallels from product liability cases against Big Tobacco and the automotive industry, the principal argument that the plaintiffs are alleging is that major tech companies designed their social media platforms in a negligent manner, meaning they did not take reasonable steps to avoid causing harm. “Specifically, the plaintiffs are arguing that design features such as infinite scroll and autoplay caused certain injuries to minors, including disordered eating, self-harm, and suicide,” says Mary Anne Franks, a law professor at George Washington University.
On the other side, the tech companies will likely focus on causation and free speech defenses. “The defendants will argue that it was third-party content that caused the plaintiffs’ injuries, not the access to this content that was provided by the platforms,” says Franks. The companies may also likely argue, she says, “that to the extent the companies’ decision-making about content moderation is implicated, that decision-making is protected by the First Amendment,” citing the US Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling in Moody v. Netchoice.
