Social Media’s Big Tobacco Moment

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These are live images outside the courthouse in Los Angeles where a verdict has been reached

in a potentially landmark social media addiction trial meta and YouTube essentially on trial.

And based on a jury's finding on Wednesday, liable for damages.

The jury in Los Angeles Superior Court said that meta and YouTube's negligence was a substantial

factor in causing harm to the plaintiff, who went by her initials KGM in court.

The jury also said the companies failed to adequately warn users of the dangers of Instagram

and YouTube.

New York Times tech reporter Ryan Mack was at the courthouse.

I asked him to describe the scene for me when the verdict came down after nine days

of deliberation.

There were camera crews outside who were also very tired waiting for this verdict.

Three sets of lawyers and, you know, also these families of these social media users who

had died, you know, or, you know, committed suicide after having bad experiences on social

media.

So those families were also around the courthouse.

But everyone was just kind of waiting for this thing to come in.

Nine days of deliberation is a pretty long time.

Were you expecting this verdict?

You know, after a certain point, I think I was expecting something to happen.

At least a verdict against these companies, I think it would have been easier for the

jury to come to go into deliberation and be like, you know, oh, you know, there's

no big deal here.

Let's, you know, get out of here and no one's liable.

But they really took their time going through the evidence and going through everything that

happened in the trial.

I think they understood the gravitas of this case, which, you know, is a bellweather case.

One of nine cases to be held in LA regarding social media.

And they, they took that responsibility pretty seriously.

What was the reaction like, certainly among the families when the jury returned its verdict?

Judge had issued some warnings about, you know, not displaying too much emotion.

You kicked out of the court room.

But, you know, there was, there were smiles that were, you know, kind of stifled cheers

in a way.

Stifled, you know, outbursts, you know, these people had been waiting for a long time.

And while these families weren't necessarily involved with the plaintiffs per se, you

know, they weren't the family members of the plaintiff.

They viewed this as kind of a proxy justice for their own loved ones.

And, you know, these loved ones had used social media.

They had had negative experiences and maybe died after using social media according to them.

And so they saw this as justice for these, or against these like, you know, massive

companies that they had no way of holding to account.

This is actually the second court case that Metta lost this week.

On Tuesday, a New Mexico jury found that Metta had failed to protect kids on its apps from

child sexual exploitation.

Metta has lost in court twice this week.

And not even a year ago, the idea of losing big cases, let alone this many this quickly,

I think might have seemed unfathomable.

Same thing goes for YouTube, that same idea.

So I wonder what that tells you about how we think about online platforms or maybe how

juries think about online platforms in 2026.

That's strange.

I've reported on Metta for almost a decade now.

And, you know, the thought of this happening seven or eight years ago when I was really

covering the company seriously is unfathomable, you know, and it's sort of like London busses,

these two things coming at the same time.

You do Mexico verdict that you're talking about $375 million in this state case about

child exploitation.

You know, it's a bit apples and oranges to the verdict that we got in L.A., which was

about social media addiction and whether or not these companies design their platforms

to be addictive, but it does represent something of a shift here or ground shift in, you know,

holding these companies again to account.

Today on the show, big tech loses in court.

Are juries ready to hold companies accountable when Congress won't?

I'm Lizzie O'Leary and you're listening to WhatNextTBD, a show about technology, power,

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Let's step back a bit for people who haven't been following this as closely as they

have.

Can you tell me the story of this Bellweather case in LA and the story of this plaintiff?

We'll start with the plaintiff.

The plaintiff is a 20-year-old woman, her name is KGM, and her case was filed.

I believe about four years ago when she was still a minor.

Throughout the proceedings, the case, even after the case, she has remained anonymous.

She also goes by Kaylee.

Before we know about her, she was in the court.

She testified.

She's from Northern California.

She has used YouTube since she was about eight years old, I believe, in Instagram since

she was nine, and has a lot of mental health issues.

She says are attributed to the use of those social media platforms, things like body

dysmorphia, for example, and anxiety, that she says would not have been as bad or even

possible without the social media.

In terms of this case itself, it's called the Bellweather case because it's kind of the

first of many.

It sets the tone.

It's one of many, many cases that have been filed against these companies.

It just happened to be that this one was the first selected to go to trial.

In Los Angeles, there are eight other cases that are set to go to trial.

There are other cases in the Northern District of California as well.

We're about to see a kind of period where these companies are constantly under trial.

I'm talking about meta and YouTube, you know, Alphabet, I guess, is a paired company.

This lawsuit also originally included TikTok and Snap, although those two companies settled

before the trial began, but it could be this kind of, I guess, golden age of litigation

against these companies.

What is so key about this case is that it was about addiction and design of the platform,

not the content itself.

I think that is an incredibly important distinction.

I wonder if you could explain why that's so key and why that legal strategy was so important.

Legal strategy is very important because it completely avoids Section 230 of the Communications

Decency Act.

Correct.

Section 230, which is a decades old law, says that companies are not liable for the content

that their users post.

So if a user, for example, posts a death threat against another user, Instagram or Reddit

or wherever, is not responsible for that piece of content, even if it is violent of other

laws.

The plaintiffs attorneys and the plaintiffs took a look at this and said, we don't want

to screw with that.

We don't want to go up against that because the precedent there is so strong that we'll

just get our case thrown out on those grounds.

What they went after was the design of these platforms and were the executives of these

companies aware that the design of these platforms could that lead to negative outcomes or social

media addiction?

This is the big tobacco philosophy, basically.

And it was based on the verdict of winning strategy.

Were there any moments in court that really stood out to you, particularly around these

sort of internal communications?

They had Mark Zuckerberg and Adam Messeri.

Head of Instagram.

Yeah, head of Instagram.

And it's interesting because you watch or you read about this testimony and they're trying

to thread the needle here where they feel that they're doing the best they can for kids,

they also don't want to admit wrong or fault.

And it's just kind of weird dance that you get with these executives.

You know, Mark Zuckerberg, especially, and anytime he testifies, it's always, it's not

very common.

So it was always a spectacle when that happened.

I was particularly interested in, I mean, I was there for closing and, you know, something

that really intrigued me is this larger idea of how do you hold these companies accountable

especially when, you know, there's two phases of this, of this trial, which was one was

trying to determine liability.

And the second much quicker phase was punitive damages.

Once they established liability, what was going to be punitive to these companies, what

could actually punish them?

And you know, someone has, whose report on these companies for years now, I understand

that these are the wealthiest, most powerful companies in the world.

And how do you punish a company that has a one and a half trillion dollar market cap in

Meta or three and a half trillion dollar market cap in Google?

And ultimately, the jury didn't really grapple with that, I think.

But I think this is something that will come up in later cases as well as is like, what

will prevent these companies from doing this again?

And what is the kind of appropriate financial penalty to assess to them?

Both companies say they will appeal.

Meta sent us a statement saying, teen mental health is profoundly complex and cannot be

linked to a single app.

We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously as every case is different and we remain confident

in our record of protecting teens online.

In terms of damages, the jury awarded the plaintiff $3 million in compensatory damages

and another $3 million in punitive damages.

The jury said Meta should pay 70% of that and YouTube 30%.

For companies with market caps north of a trillion dollars, well, it's a drop of a drop in

the pocket for these companies.

It's not even a slap on the wrist.

It's a tap on the wrist, I guess $3 million for, you know, six or six million or whatever

you want to call it, any millions of, you know, that I feel like they've probably spent

more on lawyers and legal fees in this case than they will have to pay to the plaintiff.

I think it was very interesting watching this trial in that the verdict came down initially

against Meta and YouTube and you could kind of see the faces of the lawyers drop, you

know, especially with YouTube, I don't think they're necessarily expecting this.

Meta, you know, I think there's a stronger case against them and there was a lot more

focus on Meta, but you know, after that first phase of trial on Wednesday, I think the

company saw, dang, we're going to be in for one here and you get to the second phase

where the jury goes and determines what's punitive damages, what's punitive to these companies.

And they come out and they say, you know, just another $3 million.

And, you know, I think that's in some ways a win for these companies.

That's such a small amount.

The plaintiff's attorney Mark Leneer was asking for potentially hundreds of millions is

not billions of dollars in punitive damages.

He had this very interesting prop where he brought a jar of M&Ms and each M&M represented

a billion dollars in net worth to these companies.

And so he said, you know, what is it if I take out one M&M or two M&Ms or a handful

of M&Ms?

It's not going to matter.

These companies will not notice.

That's why you as a jury need to consider that when you punish them.

That's kind of what takes me to my next point, which is the question about reputation and

public opinion because obviously from an economic standpoint, right?

As you said, this is not even like a tap on a tap on the rest.

There is this large amount of other similar cases.

It does make me wonder like, are we now in this new era of juries and plaintiffs attorneys

and state agencies and just people suing social media companies in a way that we've never

seen before?

And I think that's where the lasting impact of this trial will take us.

You know, if there had been a verdict where both companies were not liable, that would

have shut the door for many of these other cases.

But now we have this precedent where a plaintiff came in, sued these companies based on the

design of their apps and came away with a win.

You know, maybe financially not the win that some would have expected, but a win nonetheless.

And so you take that and you apply that now down the road to, that was just one person.

You know, what happens if you have eight other cases and what if everyone in those cases

is awarded $6 million and then other people see that and they file their own cases?

There could be this kind of domino effect here.

And I think if you're a plaintiff in those cases waiting in the wings, you are a little

heartened by that.

That there is a path to victory and there is a path to holding this company accountable.

And I think that's kind of what we'll see as the lasting kind of legacy of this.

After the break, is section 230 really going to change?

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For the ones who get it done.

Well, there's this other verdict.

This jury in New Mexico found that metadata didn't protect kids from online harm.

It is very different from the case where you were in the courtroom, but it is similar in

that the platforms are being held liable, even though in both cases, the platforms are

going to appeal.

It just seems like this kind of multi-dimensional legal attack where juries, regular people,

are doing a thing that a lot of lawmakers have not really done over the past 10, 15 years

as we've been talking about all this stuff.

Right.

I think that going back to that New Mexico case real quick, I think that one will have

a much tougher time holding, given that there is content involved there, and so you get

section 230 that will kick in potentially on appeal and maybe erase some of Assam if

not all of that, $375 million verdict.

But to your point on the lawmakers and regulators here, we've had so little regulation with

regards to these companies in the U.S. around the world, we've seen other countries try to

enact laws whether those are age restrictions or identity verification or that kind of thing.

We can argue the merits of those laws or the intent of them, but at least some of these

countries have seen that they need to do something, I guess, and in the U.S., despite the

changing Democrat-Republican leadership over the years, there has been no really meaningful

federal regulation when it comes to social media.

Of course, there's been plenty of stuff that has been proposed, so I think some people

have simply had it, and they've gone this legal route and this very novel legal route

now that we've seen, and this potentially is the path to hold these companies accountable

in their view.

A thing that I find interesting, I talked to the Nebraska Attorney General a couple of

weeks ago about his suit against Roblox, and it's a different suit.

It's a bit more like the New Mexico one, where this is about predators and child sexual

abuse material, but it is striking to me.

He is a Republican, he is a Federalist Society guy.

It is striking to me that we are now seeing bipartisan legal action against Big Tech in

a way that feels a little different to me than we have seen before.

Potentially, but I don't know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, am I overselling it?

We've also seen lawsuits against Big Tech in the past, and there was this tech lash and

then nothing happens.

I don't know.

I feel like I've seen so many of these waves of it come and go.

I mean, there is this, I guess, greater focus on quote unquote, child safety that has played

out.

And I think that is where a lot of the energy is.

Of course, in this case, this was a case of a 20-year-old woman, but it was filed when

she was still underage.

And I think that is kind of uniting in a way for Democrats and Republicans.

I think we've seen senators on both parties kind of push on that.

I think the outcomes and maybe the intent is a little different, but this idea of rallying

around child safety.

But I guess I would caution a little bit as to like, you know, is asking if this is finally

the moment where people, you know, hold hands and come together on social media regulation.

I guess I'll believe it when I see it.

Okay.

So let's talk about Section 230.

We have just had hearings in Congress about Section 230 of the CDA and what could happen,

what should happen.

It is a very thorny issue and you have people kind of from all sides of the political spectrum

taking a whole variety of positions.

Right now CDA 230 protects platforms from liability for what third parties post on their platform.

Do you think there is real momentum to repeal or change 230?

Oh, man, I'm going to get, however I answer this, people are just going to yell at me.

So I do believe there are people out there that want Section 230 to be reformed or at least

ended.

I think Donald Trump has said that, you know, at some point, you know, who knows what

he believes.

But yeah, I don't know.

It's hard to gauge, I guess.

There's always been a very vocal contingent that has been against 230.

And I guess I'd be remiss if I didn't say, you know, Section 230 is largely why we have

the modern internet.

It's why the internet has flourished in the way that it has.

But at the same time, it's now become this shield for these multi-trillion dollar companies,

right?

And I think that's why people are concerned, those that have concerns.

This law that has existed for a few decades now is protecting the most powerful companies

in the world.

Yeah.

The original CDA is 1996.

So like, we've been doing this for a while.

20 years.

Yeah.

And, you know, back then, there wasn't Facebook.

There wasn't, I mean, the thought of these companies being worth trillions of dollars was

not on anyone's radar.

And now that they are, and they're protected from a lot of litigation around their content

because of this law, I think that concerns people.

And I think a lot of people are wondering if that was truly the spirit of that law to protect

the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world or the Googles and the YouTubes and TikToks.

Where does this put meta and alphabet today?

Because on the one hand, they are facing legal consequences, consequences in public opinion.

On the other, they're ubiquitous.

I mean, this conversation is going on YouTube.

Like, they are knit into so many aspects of our society.

The CEOs are closely allied with the Trump administration.

Does this mean anything from an accountability perspective?

I mean, I think every big question.

Yeah.

I think so.

I mean, in their world, they would have loved to have just won that verdict and not have

to deal with this.

But now there is this, I guess, strategy on how the little guy or how the user can go after

a meta, for example.

I think the irony of this is this happened on a day where I think Zuckerberg was added

to a White House Technology Advisory Council.

So I'm sure there is some discussion there as to what can be done.

It's now a secret of the lobbying effort of these companies with the Trump administration.

So the thing is here that that can only do so much, like this is the legal system.

And I think it'll at least cancel wine their way through the courts.

And as you pointed out, this is just a different form of accountability.

This isn't regulation.

This isn't lawmakers.

Senators or Congress people and two parties deciding it's regular juries here.

And I stress that because I've spent time with these folks, so I guess in the same courtroom

as these folks, and talked to two of them yesterday.

And these are the people that are going to be deciding the fates in some ways of these

massive companies.

Did they feel satisfied?

The juries or the jury members that we spoke to?

Yeah.

I think they were satisfied with their work.

Certainly, I think the length of the trial spoke to how serious they took it.

I thought it was interesting because in asking them questions, they played down the idea

of how significant this case was.

They weren't taking into account the eight other cases that would follow or the, you know,

they weren't told to consider those.

I think they were doing their job as jurors on a case.

I think it would have been wrong to be like, oh, wear this group of 12 and we're about

to set the precedent for years to come.

So that was our job as reporters to kind of link that significance to this.

So I think it was interesting.

There are two different perspectives.

These people are so tunnel vision on this one verdict, but in doing so, they have, again,

somebody's pushed the first domino over.

Ryan Mack, thank you so much for talking with me.

Thanks again.

Ryan Mack is a reporter for The New York Times.

All right, that is it for our show today.

What Next TBD is produced by Evan Campbell on Patrick Ford.

Our show is edited by Paige Osburn, who is the senior supervising producer for What Next

and What Next TBD.

Mia Lowe Bell is the executive producer here at Slate, and TBD is part of the larger

What Next family.

We will be back on Sunday.

I'm Lizzie O'Leary.

Thanks so much for listening.

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