![\"victims](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774473487_828_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nAfter a grueling seven weeks of court proceedings and more than 40 hours of tense deliberations across nine days in one of the country\u2019s most closely watched civil trials, jurors handed down a landmark decision in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday, finding Instagram and YouTube responsible for the suffering of a Chico woman who charged the platforms were built to addict young users. <\/p>\n
Kaley G.M., the 20-year-old plaintiff, arrived in court just before 10 a.m. wearing the same rose-colored maxi dress she\u2019d donned to testify in February. She remained stoic as the verdict, an award of $3 million and a decision warranting additional punitive damages were read out. A companion fought back tears, her chin quivering. Several observers wept silently despite Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl\u2019s repeated warning not to respond. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to have no reaction to the jury\u2019s verdict \u2014 no crying out, no reactions, no disturbance,\u201d Kuhl warned. \u201cIf there is we will have to have you removed from the courtroom, and we sure don\u2019t want to have to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Less than two hours after they delivered their initial verdict, the jury returned to award $2.1 million in punitive damages against Meta and $900,000 against Google, bringing the total judgment against the companies to $6 million combined. <\/p>\n
Attorneys for Snapchat and TikTok also appeared in court Wednesday morning to hear the decision. The two platforms settled with Kaley out of court for undisclosed sums before the trial. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe respectfully disagree with the verdict and are evaluating our legal options,\u201d a spokesperson for Instagram\u2019s parent company Meta said. <\/p>\n
The verdict arrived less than 24 hours after a New Mexico jury found Meta liable for $375 million in damages related to Atty. Gen. Ra\u00fal Torres\u2019 claim it turned Instagram into a \u201cbreeding ground\u201d for child predators \u2014 a decision the platform has vowed to appeal. <\/p>\n
The Los Angeles jury took much longer to deliberate. On Friday, jurors preempted their pizza lunch break to ask Kuhl whether all of them should weigh in on damages, or only those who\u2019d agreed on liability. On Monday they told Kuhl they were struggling to agree about one of the defendants. <\/p>\n
Kuhl told the jury to keep trying. <\/p>\n
Kaley said she first got hooked on YouTube and Instagram in grade school. Jurors were charged with determining whether the companies acted negligently in designing their products and failed to warn her of the dangers. <\/p>\n
Their verdict will echo through thousands of other pending lawsuits, reshaping the legal landscape for some of the world\u2019s most powerful companies. Experts say the payout will likely set the bar for future awards. <\/p>\n
It comes on the heels of a Delaware court decision clearing Meta\u2019s insurers of responsibility for damages incurred from \u201cseveral thousand lawsuits regarding the harm its platforms allegedly cause children\u201d \u2014 a ruling that could leave it and other tech titans on the hook for untold future millions. <\/p>\n
Until this trial, which began in late January, no suit seeking to hold tech titans responsible for harms to children had ever reached a jury. Many more are now set to follow. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Victims\u2019 families and supporters, left to right, Shelby Knox, Amy Neville, Mary Rodee, Laura Marquez-Garrett, Sarah Gardner and Lennon Torres react to the verdict outside the Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday. The jury found Meta and YouTube negligent, finding Meta 70% responsible for harm and YouTube 30% responsible awarding the plaintiff $3 million in damages.<\/p>\n
(Kayla Bartkowski \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
Kaley\u2019s test case was chosen from among scores of suits currently consolidated in California state court. Hundreds more are moving together through the federal system, where the first trial is set for June in San Francisco. <\/p>\n
Collectively, the suits seek to prove that harm flowed not from user content but from the design and operation of the platforms themselves. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s a critical legal distinction, experts say. Social media companies have so far been protected by a powerful 1996 law called Section 230, which has shielded the apps from responsibility for what happens to children who use it. <\/p>\n
Lawyers for Meta and Google argued Kaley\u2019s struggles were the result of her fractious home life and fallout from the COVID pandemic, not social media.<\/p>\n
![\"Plaintiffs'](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774473487_713_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Plaintiffs\u2019 attorney Mark Lanier speaks with the media at the Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
(Kayla Bartkowski \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it should have ever gotten to a jury trial,\u201d said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law and an expert on the 1st Amendment, which also protects the platforms. \u201cAll media tries to keep people on [their platform] and coming back.\u201d <\/p>\n
Others say social media\u2019s algorithmic ability to capture, cultivate and control attention makes it fundamentally different from teen-friendly romantasy novels, Marvel movies or first-person shooter games. <\/p>\n
\u201cThese are truly hard and heartbreaking cases,\u201d said Eric J. Segall, a professor at Georgia State College of Law. \u201cThey represent a clash between free speech values and the real harms caused by protecting those companies that engage in free speech amplification for profit.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cLetting jurors sort all of this out without more guidance is tempting but also risky,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
As deliberations that began March 13 wore on, jurors signaled similar skepticism, asking to see internal Meta documents, and reviewing testimony from a defense expert \u201cin regards to her professional integrity; being the only doctor stating social media was not a contributing factor to KGM\u2019s mental health.\u201d <\/p>\n
They appeared to agree on Meta\u2019s culpability by Friday, but labored through Tuesday to hash out a decision for Google, delivering their verdict just after 10 a.m. Wednesday. <\/p>\n
\u201cToday, a jury saw the truth and held Meta and Google accountable for designing products that addict and harm children,\u201d said Lexi Hazam, court-appointed co-lead plaintiffs\u2019 counsel in the related federal action. \u201cThis verdict sends an unmistakable message that no company is above accountability.\u201d <\/p>\n
The outcome will likely transform the already heated debate over social media addiction as a concept, what role apps may play in engineering it, and whether individuals like Kaley can prove they\u2019re afflicted. <\/p>\n
The platforms\u2019 attorneys sought to cast doubt on the ailment \u2014 emphasizing that there is no formal diagnosis for social media addiction \u2014 while also arguing that Kaley had never been treated for it. <\/p>\n
\u201cSubstitute the words \u2018YouTube\u2019 for the word methamphetamine,\u201d attorney Luis Li urged the jury during closing arguments Thursday. \u201cAsk yourselves with your lifetime of experience whether anybody suffering from addiction could say, \u2018Yeah, I just kind of lost interest.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cShe was sitting there for hours without being on her phone,\u201d said Meta attorney Paul W. Schmidt. <\/p>\n
YouTube\u2019s team also sought to distance the video-sharing app from Instagram and other social media platforms, saying its functions are fundamentally different. <\/p>\n
Kaley\u2019s team called it \u201ca gateway\u201d to her social media addiction. <\/p>\n
\u201cYouTube wasn\u2019t a gateway to anything,\u201d Li said. \u201cYouTube was a toy that a child liked and then put down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jurors disagreed, ultimately holding the platform liable, though they split the liability 70-30, weighting heavily to Meta. <\/p>\n
Lanier leaned on his down-home Texas folksiness throughout the trial, telling the jury what was on his heart and scribbling with grease pencil on his demonstrative aids. In his direct addresses to the jury, he used a set of wooden baby blocks, stacks of paper, even a hammer and a crate of eggs. <\/p>\n
During the punitive phase of the trial late Wednesday morning, he brought out a glass jar filled with 415 peanut M&Ms to represent the $415 billion of stockholder\u2019s equity Google\u2019s parent company Alphabet was valued at in December.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are you going to fine them for this?\u201d he probed. \u201cAre you going to fine them a billion?\u201d He plucked a green M&M from the top of the pile. \u201cTwo billion?\u201d He pulled out another. \u201cYou know a pack of M&Ms has 18 M&Ms in it? You fine them a billion, and they\u2019re not going to notice.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThe last thing in the world they want you to do is talk about how many M&Ms they\u2019ve got,\u201d the lawyer said, urging jurors to \u201ctalk to Meta in Meta money.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThe last thing in the world they want you to do is focus on what it takes to hold them accountable for what they\u2019ve done,\u201d Lanier said.<\/p>\n
Conversely, the tech teams relied on slick digital presentations to review evidence and illustrate their arguments. <\/p>\n
\u201cFocus on those facts that are at issue in this case,\u201d Schmidt urged the jury during closings. \u201cNot lawyer arguments, not props like a glass of water or a jar of M&Ms, but actual proof in evidence.\u201d <\/p>\n
During the punitive phase of the trial, he sought to emphasize that \u201cthere wasn\u2019t an intention to do harm\u201d to children, and that it had worked diligently to make its products safer.<\/p>\n
The case was the first to get Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the witness stand, where he defended Instagram\u2019s safety record and lamented the difficulty of keeping youngsters off the app. <\/p>\n
It also made public tens of thousands of pages of internal documents \u2014 documents Lanier argued showed the companies intentionally targeted children, and engineered their products to keep them on the platforms longer. <\/p>\n
\u201cThese are internal documents that you\u2019re uniquely seeing because you\u2019re the jury that got to sit on this case,\u201d Lanier told the jury during closing arguments on Thursday. \u201cIt\u2019s given you exposure that the world hasn\u2019t had.\u201d <\/p>\n
Those previously undisclosed materials likely proved critical to the jury\u2019s ultimate verdict, experts said. <\/p>\n
\u201cInternal emails here were key \u2014 they painted a picture of indifference at Meta,\u201d said Joseph McNally, former Acting U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California and an expert in \u201ctechnology-related harm.\u201d<\/p>\n
The tech titans have already vowed to appeal both the California and New Mexico verdicts, all-but ensuring the issue is ultimately decided by the Supreme Court, experts said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a grueling seven weeks of court proceedings and more than 40 hours of tense deliberations across nine…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6998,7000,8,4006,7001,6995,6996,6999,3554,9,6994,6997,7003,7002,7,3773,6558,3555],"class_list":{"0":"post-9614","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-child-predator","9":"tag-expert","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-instagram","12":"tag-juror","13":"tag-jury","14":"tag-kaley-g-m","15":"tag-landmark-decision","16":"tag-meta","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-platform","19":"tag-social-medium-company","20":"tag-team","21":"tag-test-case","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-trial","24":"tag-verdict","25":"tag-youtube"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116291902040693823","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}