LOS ANGELES – In closing arguments in the first social media addiction trial to put the tech giants before a jury, the plaintiff’s attorney lashed out at social platforms for profiting from users’ attention, likening their features to a Trojan horse.
The plaintiff, identified in court as Kaley and in documents by her initials, KGM, is at the center of a landmark case that could set a legal precedent on whether social media platforms are responsible for causing mental health problems in children.
Their lawsuit accuses social media companies of deliberately designing their platforms to be more addictive to children for profit. KGM, who was a minor at the time of the incidents described in her lawsuit, testified last month that her almost continuous use of social media “really affected (her) self-esteem.”
“How can you make it so that a child never gets off the phone? That’s called addiction engineering. They designed it, they put these features in the phones,” KGM’s attorney, Mark Lanier, said in court Thursday. “These are Trojan horses: They look wonderful and cool… but you invite them in and they take control.”
Lanier compared Instagram’s endless scrolling and YouTube autoplay to free tortilla chips at a restaurant. He noted that engagement metrics and notifications keep users engaged, adding that teens especially have a hard time regulating their own usage because they crave social approval and lack the determination that an adult might have.
“How did they become such giants?” said about the largest social media platforms. “It’s the attention economy. They’re making money by getting your attention… Every second (KGM) spends on YouTube or Instagram is a second they can sell to an advertiser.”
KGM’s lawsuit is the first in a consolidated group of cases filed against Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Snap by more than 1,600 plaintiffs, including more than 350 families and more than 250 school districts. The plaintiffs accuse technology companies of deliberately designing addictive products harmful to the mental health of young users.
Historically, social media platforms have been protected by Section 230, a provision added to the Communications Act of 1934 that says internet companies are not responsible for content that users post. TikTok and Snap reached settlements with KGM before the trial, but remain defendants in a series of similar lawsuits that are expected to go to trial this year.
If the jury’s verdict favors KGM, the companies could face damages to be determined by the jury. That could set the tone for whether they decide to fight or solve the cases ahead.
Representatives for Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, and YouTube have denied that their apps are intentionally harmful and addictive to young users.
YouTube’s vice president of engineering, Cristos Goodrow, previously testified that the video platform “is not designed to maximize time.”
Instagram head Adam Mosseri was also pressed about the platform’s beauty filters, which KGM later said she frequently used in a way that negatively affected her self-confidence. Mosseri testified that Instagram had decided to ban “effects that promote plastic surgery.”
And Meta has rejected claims that the design of social media platforms is responsible for KGM’s mental health problems as a child. A spokesperson for the company stated that the plaintiff “faced profound challenges” of which “none of her therapists identified social media as the cause.”
“Her records show significant emotional and physical abuse, academic struggles and psychiatric conditions, in addition to her use of social media. Witnesses hired by her attorney admitted that social media has benefited Kaley, and she used it as an outlet to cope with difficult circumstances at home,” the spokesperson said. “The evidence simply does not support reducing a lifetime of hardship to a single factor, and our case will continue to underscore that reality.”
During his testimony last month, KGM disputed complaints he made about his mother when he was younger, telling jurors that his mother “wasn’t perfect but she was doing the best she could.”
“Everyone makes mistakes,” he said. “I don’t think I would call it abuse or neglect or anything like that.”
As the KGM case nears its conclusion, Matt Bergman, founding attorney for the Social Media Victims Law Center (which represents about 750 plaintiffs in the California proceeding and about 500 in the federal proceeding), told reporters Wednesday that simply taking the case to trial was a victory in itself.
“Whether you win or lose the outcome of this trial, victims in America have won because we now know that social media companies can and will be held accountable before a fair and impartial jury,” Bergman said. “And in some cases the plaintiffs will prevail, and in others they may not, but we are just pleased by the opportunity to get this far and there will be many more trials to come.”
