By Courtney Rozen
WASHINGTON, Jan 26 (Reuters) – Meta Platforms, TikTok and YouTube will face judicial scrutiny this week over accusations that their platforms are fueling a youth mental health crisis, as the national debate over children’s screen time enters a new phase.
The biggest lawsuit in California Superior Court, Los Angeles County, involves a 19-year-old California woman, identified as KGM, who says she became addicted to the companies’ platforms at a young age because of “their flashy design,” according to court documents. She alleges that the apps fueled her depression and suicidal thoughts and is seeking to hold the companies accountable.
Their lawsuit is the first of several cases expected to go to trial this year that center on what the plaintiffs call “social media addiction” among children. It will be the first time the tech giants will have to defend themselves in court over alleged damages caused by their products, said the plaintiff’s attorney, Matthew Bergman. “They will be under a level of scrutiny that doesn’t exist when you testify before Congress,” he told Reuters.
The jury will decide whether the companies were negligent in providing products that harmed KGM’s mental health and whether his use of the apps was a substantial factor in his depression, compared to other causes, such as third-party content he viewed on the apps or aspects of his offline life.
“This is really a test case,” said Clay Calvert, a media lawyer at the American Enterprise Institute, a pro-business think tank. “Let’s see what happens with these theories” that social media platforms caused harm to the plaintiff.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is expected to take the stand. The company will argue in court that its products did not cause KGM’s mental health problems, Meta’s lawyers told Reuters before the trial. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel was also expected to testify, as his company was named as a defendant in the lawsuit. Snap agreed on Jan. 20 to settle KGM’s lawsuit. A company spokesperson declined to comment on the details of the deal.
YouTube will argue that the company’s platforms are fundamentally different from social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok, and should not be lumped together in court, a YouTube executive said before the trial.
TikTok declined to comment on the company’s planned arguments in court.
SHAPING PUBLIC OPINION
As the trial begins, the same technology companies are mounting a nationwide effort to convince critics that their products are safe for teenagers. They launched tools that they say give parents more control over how their children use the platforms and have spent millions of dollars promoting those features.