Meta and Google liable for damages in landmark US addiction trial
Jury orders US$6 million payout to a young woman, a verdict that could affect thousands of similar cases against tech companies
A Los Angeles jury on Wednesday found Meta and YouTube liable for harming a young woman because of an addictive design of their social media platforms, ordering the companies to pay US$6 million in damages, including US$3 million in punitive damages.
The verdict handed plaintiffs in more than a thousand similar pending cases significant leverage - and signalled to the broader tech industry that juries were prepared to hold social media companies accountable for the mental health toll of their design choices.
The jury answered yes to all seven questions on verdict forms for both companies, finding that Meta and YouTube were negligent in the design and operation of their platforms and that their negligence was a substantial factor in causing harm to the plaintiff.
Jurors also found that both companies knew or should have known their services posed a danger to minors, that they failed to adequately warn users of that danger, and that a reasonable platform operator would have done so.
The panel awarded US$3 million in compensatory damages, assigning Meta 70 per cent of the responsibility for the plaintiff’s harm - a US$2.1 million share - and YouTube the remaining 30 per cent, or US$900,000.
In a second phase, jurors added a further US$3 million in total punitive damages after finding both companies had acted with malice, oppression or fraud.