Meta and YouTube Found Liable in Social Media Addiction Trial, Hiiraan Online Says

Kali Hays,Technology reporter, Nardine Saadand Regan Morris,Los AngelesFriday March 27, 2026

A Los Angeles jury delivered a landmark decision on Friday, finding that Meta and Google helped create social media platforms that harmed a woman’s mental health as a child—an outcome that parents and advocacy groups said signals a turning point for young users.

Jurors concluded that Meta, which operates Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, and Google, which owns YouTube, intentionally designed systems that fostered addiction and left the 20-year-old woman, known in court as Kaley, worse off psychologically.

Kaley was awarded $6m (£4.5m) in damages. Legal experts said the ruling is likely to reverberate across the growing number of lawsuits now moving through the US court system.

Meta and Google both said they disagree with the verdict and plan to appeal.

Meta said: “Teen mental health is profoundly complex and cannot be linked to a single app.

“We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously as every case is different, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online.”

Google’s spokesperson said: “This case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site.”

But Ellen Roome, speaking to BBC Breakfast, described the decision as an overdue response to harms linked to platforms. Roome is herself suing TikTok after the death of her son.

“How many more children are going to be harmed and potentially die from these platforms?” she asked.

“It’s been proved it’s not safe – and social media companies need to fix it.”

‘Malice, oppression or fraud’

Jurors ordered Kaley to receive $3m in compensatory damages and an additional $3m in punitive damages. They said Meta and Google “acted with malice, oppression, or fraud” in how they ran their platforms.

Under the verdict, Meta is expected to pay 70% of the damages award, with Google responsible for the remaining 30%.

Outside the courthouse, parents whose children were allegedly harmed by social media but who were not part of Kaley’s lawsuit gathered to watch proceedings—continuing a vigil that has unfolded over the five-week trial.

When the decision was released, parents including Amy Neville were pictured celebrating, hugging one another and supporters who had waited alongside them.

The ruling came a day after a New Mexico jury found Meta liable for exposing children to sexually explicit material and contact with sexual predators, based on the company’s platform practices.

Mike Proulx, a research director at advisory firm Forrester, said the two consecutive verdicts highlight a “breaking point” between social media companies and public expectations.

“Negative sentiment toward social media has been building for years, and now it’s finally boiled over,” Proulx said.

Restrictions have already begun to spread internationally. In recent months, Australia has introduced measures intended to limit children’s use or stop it altogether. The UK is running a pilot programme to assess how a ban on social media for people under 16 could work.

In response to the Los Angeles verdict, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the existing approach was “not good enough” and that more action was needed to protect children. He referenced the government’s consultation on whether to ban social media for under-16s, adding: “It’s not if things are going to change, things are going to change.

The question is, how much and what are we going to do?”

Meanwhile, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex—who have campaigned for years about the risks they believe social media poses—called the ruling a “reckoning”.

“Let this be the change – where our children’s safety is finally prioritised above profit.”

British campaigner Ian Russell, whose 14-year-old daughter Molly died by suicide in 2017 after consuming harmful material online, told BBC Newsnight that there is hope the verdict will push technology companies to change—but only if governments act.

“There is a big hope that this is a big moment and tech will… [need] to change, but only if the governments do something about it.”

Zuckerberg testimony in February

During a February appearance before the jury, Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chairman and chief executive, pointed to the company’s long-standing policy that prohibits users under 13 on any of its platforms.

Presented with internal research and documents suggesting Meta knew younger children were still using its services, Zuckerberg said he “always wished” the company had moved faster to identify users under 13. He said Meta had ultimately reached the “right place over time”.

Although YouTube was also named as a defendant, most of the trial focused on Instagram and Meta’s role in shaping content and engagement.

Snap and TikTok were initially among the defendants, but both companies settled with Kaley before trial under terms that were not disclosed.

Kaley’s legal case argued that Meta and YouTube built “addiction machines” and failed to meet their responsibility to stop children from accessing features and content.

Kaley told the court that she began using Instagram at age nine and YouTube at six, and she said she encountered no safeguards that blocked her because of her age.

“I stopped engaging with family because I was spending all my time on social media,” Kaley said during her testimony.

She said that when she was 10, she began experiencing anxiety and depression—conditions later diagnosed by a therapist years afterward.

Kaley also testified that her use included an early and growing fixation on appearance, including the use of Instagram filters that altered her look—such as making her nose smaller and her eyes bigger.

She has since been diagnosed with body dysmorphia, a condition that leads people to worry excessively about physical appearance and makes it difficult to see themselves as others do.

Her lawyers argued that engagement design elements, including infinite scroll, were built to keep users hooked.

They also said Meta’s growth targets were aimed at increasing young people’s use of its platforms, arguing that younger users are more likely to remain engaged for longer periods.

When Kaley’s attorneys told Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, that her longest single day of platform use reached 16 hours, he rejected the suggestion that it proved addiction. He described a teenager spending most of the day on Instagram as “problematic”.

Speaking to the jury after the verdict, Kaley’s lawyers said the decision “sends an unmistakable message that no company is above accountability when it comes to our children.”

Looking ahead, another lawsuit alleging harm to children by Meta and other social media companies is set to begin in June in California federal court.