Legal double whammy is just the start for social media companies | Latest Tech News
Big Tech — and particularly Meta, the mother or father of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp — has weathered two major legal blows in just two days.
And it’s all an indictment of how fed up common Americans are. They are indignant at the social media companies they consider have robbed them, and their youngsters, of their consideration and mental health.
In Los Angeles Wednesday, a 20-year-old woman identified as KGM, who said growing up online ruined her life, emerged victorious against Meta and Google — to the tune of $3 million in compensatory damages and an extra $3 million in punitive damages. And Meta is also on the hook for $375 million after a New Mexico jury ruled on Tuesday the company failed to defend youngsters on their platforms.
Parents of alleged victims of social media celebrated exterior a Los Angeles court Wednesday, after a jury held Meta and Google accountable in the case of a younger lady who claimed Instagram and YouTube harmed her. AFP via Getty Images
“It is a watershed moment in the quest for online accountability,” KGM’s lawyer Matthew Bergman told me. “It is the first time a jury has found that social media is defective as designed … causing real life harm.”
During the trial, the KGM case was said to be a “bellwether” — one that, if it succeeded, might set the panorama for more to comply with.
That’s sure to be the case now.
“I think this absolutely could also open up the floodgates,” attorney and writer Josh Hammer told me. “Big Tech is now firmly on guard, and they know they cannot continue to lure in vulnerable young Americans with their deliberately addictive algorithms.”
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO, testified personally in the Los Angeles case introduced by a 20-year-old lady identified only as KGM. His company also misplaced a case in New Mexico this week, where a jury discovered Meta failed to defend youngsters on its platform. AP
Eric Goldman, professor of law at Santa Clara University in California, identified that the New Mexico jury was restricted to awarding $5,000 per sufferer — but “would have awarded more if it could.”
He told me that “other court cases won’t be subjected to such damages caps. If other court cases also result in liability, the potential total damages could be greater than the social media services are worth.”
It’s a staggering prospect.
In the KGM trial, the jury ruled that Meta and YouTube have been both liable for negligent design and a failure to warn shoppers about risks.
Both circumstances alleged that younger people have been harmed by social media merchandise. Monkey Business – stock.adobe.com
KGM, who began utilizing YouTube at 6 and joined Instagram at 9, complained of anxiety and depression due to her social media use. She alleges she was subjected to inappropriate extortion and pummeled with content about self-harm on Instagram.
“I wanted to be on it all the time,” she testified of the app. “If I wasn’t on it, I felt like I was going to miss out on something.” She also reported experiencing physique dysmorphia and ideas of self-harm.
She beforehand settled with TikTok and Snap, who have been also listed as defendants in the swimsuit, for undisclosed sums.
A video of Mark Zuckerberg’s deposition was performed for jurors in the New Mexico case. AP
“The family is gratified. They’re exhausted by having to go through this process,” said Bergman, who is also the founder of Social Media Victims Law Center, where he represents 1,500 households. I guess more will probably be calling him after today.
I’ve not too long ago interviewed a number of mother and father who consider they misplaced their youngsters due to social media. Like Victoria Hinks, who slept exterior the court where the KGM trial was held, and whose 16-year-old daughter, Owl, took her own life in 2024.
“When I look through her phone as her 1774498561, I see all the stuff that was being served up really just normalizing depression and glamorizing suicide,” Hinks said of her daughter’s social media accounts. “The ‘skeleton bride diet,’ and these creepy, very anorexic-looking girls, it affected her self-esteem for sure. She made herself throw up. She would ask me, ‘Are my eyes too far apart?’ And, like, where would she even get that?”
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez emerged victorious in his struggle against Meta on Tuesday. Getty Images for Accountable Tech
This is a huge win for the reminiscence of youngsters like Owl.
On Tuesday, a jury in New Mexico agreed with Attorney General Raul Torrez that Meta failed to defend youngsters against predators online — which the AG’s workplace demonstrated by going undercover as a tween on social media, only to get bombarded by messages from creeps. Now the company is ordered to pay $375 million in damages.
Torrez predicted the victory in a earlier interview with The Post: “I don’t think that the jury [will] be convinced at the end of the day that a company with as many resources as [Meta has] at their disposal has done nearly enough to stop that harm.”
Meta told The Post that they might appeal the choice in New Mexico, and that the jury in the KGM trial was not unanimous. The company said they “respectfully disagree with the verdict and are evaluating our legal options.”
Law professor Eric Goldman said New Mexico jurists might need awarded more in damages if they may have. Eric Goldman.Org
Google spokesman José Castañeda told The Post that the company disagrees with the verdict and plans to appeal. “This case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site,” he added.
The choices aren’t sitting simple with everybody.
On X, free speech advocate Nico Perino said “the verdict diminishes the responsibility parents have to raise healthy kids” and warned that the ruling might stifle free expression online — legitimate considerations
Fordham University Law Professor Olivier Sylvain told me he thinks these rulings will encourage platforms to be better.
“I have to assume that these cases will finally force companies to be far more alert and transparent about the downstream effects of their development and design decisions,” Sylvain said.
It’s exhausting to say yet if these ruling will carry Big Tech to their knees. But they may positively give social media giants, who beforehand had every incentive to keep you glued to your devices at any value, new financial incentive to deal with their shoppers like precise human beings.
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