Overview
- Jurors in Los Angeles, which reached a decision Wednesday, awarded $6 million to a 20-year-old Californian after finding Instagram and YouTube fueled her adolescent mental health problems, assigning 70% of the blame to Meta and 30% to Google.
- A day earlier in Santa Fe, a civil jury ordered Meta to pay $375 million for endangering minors on its platforms, and the company said it will appeal the judgment.
- Both cases focused on design choices that keep users hooked, citing features such as infinite scroll, likes, autoplay and late‑night notifications rather than the user content that federal law known as Section 230 typically protects.
- Meta and Google plan to appeal the Los Angeles verdict, more trials are queued in California including another case set for July, a federal judge is weighing a nationwide docket, and the New Mexico case now proceeds to a public‑nuisance phase.
- Testimony and records included Mark Zuckerberg saying Meta could have acted sooner to remove under‑13 users, Snap and TikTok settled before trial, and coverage ranged from outlets calling the rulings a turning point to editorials warning of unintended costs.