Cecilia Kang, Ryan Mac and Eli Tan, The New York Times ; Meta and YouTube Found Negligent in Landmark Social Media Addiction Case
A jury found the companies negligent in their app designs, harming a young user with design features that were addictive and led to her mental health distress.
"The social media company Meta and the video streaming service YouTube harmed a young user with design features that were addictive and led to her mental health distress, a jury found on Wednesday, a landmark decision that could open social media companies to more lawsuits over users’ well-being.
Meta and YouTube must pay $3 million in compensatory damages for pain and suffering and other financial burdens. Meta is responsible for 70 percent of that cost and YouTube for the remainder.
The bellwether case, which was brought by a now 20-year-old woman identified as K.G.M., had accused social media companies of creating products as addictive as cigarettes or digital casinos. K.G.M. sued Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, and Google’s YouTube over features like infinite scroll and algorithmic recommendations that she claimed led to anxiety and depression.
The jury of seven women and five men will deliberate further to decide what punitive damages the companies should pay for malice or fraud."
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