LA Jury Finds Meta, YouTube Liable for Addictive Features, Awards $6M

A Los Angeles jury has found Meta Platforms and Alphabet's YouTube liable for designing addictive features on Instagram and YouTube that contributed to a young woman's mental health issues, awarding her $6 million in damages. The verdict, delivered on March 25 after a seven-week trial, marks the first time a U.S. jury has held major social media companies accountable in such a case, assigning 70 percent of the liability to Meta and 30 percent to Google.

The plaintiff, a 20-year-old woman identified in court as K.G.M., testified that she began using YouTube at age six and Instagram at age nine. She claimed the platforms' design elements trapped her in compulsive use, leading to severe anxiety, depression, body dysmorphia and thoughts of self-harm. Her lawyers argued that features like infinite scrolling, autoplay videos, algorithm-driven notifications and beauty filters functioned like digital slot machines, exploiting young users' developing brains to maximize engagement. These elements, they said, created endless loops of content without natural stopping points, prioritizing time spent on the apps over user well-being.

Internal company documents presented at trial showed...