{"id":17908,"date":"2026-03-25T23:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T23:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/jury-rules-against-meta-and-youtube-in-social-media-addiction-case\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T23:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T23:58:08","slug":"jury-rules-against-meta-and-youtube-in-social-media-addiction-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/jury-rules-against-meta-and-youtube-in-social-media-addiction-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Jury rules against Meta and YouTube in social media addiction case"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">A jury in Los Angeles has found that Meta and YouTube were negligent in a closely-watched trial over social media addiction. The companies were ordered to pay $6 million in damages to the woman who said she was harmed by their addictive features as a child.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">The case was brought by a 20-year-old woman, named in court documents as &ldquo;K.G.M,&rdquo; who sued Meta, YouTube, TikTok and Snap, saying that she had been harmed by the platforms as a child due to addictive features. TikTok and Snap reached a settlement ahead of the trial.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">According to <em>NBC News<\/em>, Meta was ordered to pay 70 percent of the $3 million in compensatory damages with YouTube taking on the remaining portion. The jury awarded an additional $3 million in punitive damages. &ldquo;We respectfully disagree with the verdict and are evaluating our legal options,&rdquo; a Meta spokesperson said in a statement. &ldquo;We disagree with the verdict and plan to appeal.,&rdquo; Google spokesperson Jos&eacute; Casta&ntilde;eda said in a statement. &ldquo;This case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<div class=\"col-fullbleed mb-4 bg-marshmallow pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:invisible md:mb-0 md:h-0 md:overflow-hidden md:pb-0\">\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_kgb7b4ilfaiv5tilbH1_\">\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">The weeks-long trial has been closely watched because it&rsquo;s the first of many court cases in which plaintiffs have argued that social media platforms harmed minors due to how they were designed. Meta&rsquo;s lawyers and executives have disputed the idea that social media should be considered an &ldquo;addiction.&rdquo; CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified that the company wants Instagram to be &ldquo;useful,&rdquo; and repeatedly accused the plaintiff&rsquo;s lawyer of &ldquo;mischaracterizing&rdquo; his past statements.<\/p>\n<div class=\"internal-linking-related-contents\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/12-weeks-jail-for-school-it-support-technician-who-took-upskirt-videos-of-teachers\/\" class=\"template-1\"><span class=\"cta\">News :<\/span><span class=\"postTitle\">&lt;div&gt;12 weeks' jail for school IT support technician who took upskirt videos of teachers&lt;\/div&gt;<\/span><\/a><\/div><p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">&ldquo;This is the first time in history a jury has heard testimony by executives and seen internal documents that we believe prove these companies chose profits over children,&rdquo; Joseph VanZandt, one of K.G.M.&rsquo;s lawyers, said in a statement to <em>The New York Times,<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">For Meta, it&rsquo;s the second legal setback in as many days. The verdict comes one day after a jury in New Mexico ruled against Meta in a trial over child safety issues. The company was ordered to pay $375 million in penalties; the company said it would appeal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\"><strong>Update, March 25, 2026, 11:22AM PT: <\/strong>Added a statement from Google.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\"><strong>Update. March 25, 2026, 2:05PM PT:<\/strong> Added details about punitive damages.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><sub>Jury rules against Meta and YouTube in social media addiction case<\/sub><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A jury in Los Angeles has found that Meta and YouTube were negligent in a closely-watched trial over social media addiction. The companies were ordered to pay $6 million in damages to the woman who said she was harmed by their addictive features as a child. The case was brought by a 20-year-old woman, named&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-wrap\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/jury-rules-against-meta-and-youtube-in-social-media-addiction-case\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;Jury rules against Meta and YouTube in social media addiction case&rdquo;<\/span> &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17909,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}