Mar 29, 2026
A Los Angeles jury has found Meta and Google’s YouTube negligent in a case brought by a now 20-year-old who alleges she became addicted to YouTube and apps, like Instagram, as a child. She claims it led to her experiencing anxiety and depression.
Lawyers for the woman, identified as K.G.M., or Kaley, accused the companies of creating products as addictive as cigarettes and online gambling, with features like infinite scroll and autoplay, and failing to warn users of the dangers associated with using their platforms (1).
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A Los Angeles jury ruled in Kaley’s favor on March 25. The court ordered Meta to pay $4.2 million in combined compensatory and punitive damages, and YouTube to pay $1.8 million (2).
“Today’s verdict is a historic moment — for Kaley and for the thousands of children and families who have been waiting for this day,” attorneys representing the plaintiff said in a statement (3). “A jury of Kaley’s peers heard the evidence, heard what Meta and YouTube knew and when they knew it, and held them accountable for their conduct.”
Both companies plan to appeal.
In a statement from Meta, a spokesperson said, “We respectfully disagree with the verdict,” adding that the mental health of teens is “profoundly complex and cannot be linked to a single app” (3, 4).
A spokesperson for Google said, in part, “This case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site” (4).
The bigger picture
This case is being called a bellwether. It’s one of three a California judge picked to proceed, consolidated from thousands of social media personal injury lawsuits across the state. The ruling in this first case may help form a basis for verdicts and settlements in the other two, and similar litigation (5).
A trial set to start later this year in the Northern District of California, part of the consolidated proceedings, will deal with claims of health-related harm to young users of apps from Meta, YouTube, TikTok and Snap (maker of Snapchat) (3).
Meanwhile, the day before the Los Angeles ruling, in a trial in New Mexico, Meta was ordered to pay $375 million in damages after jurors found the company failed to protect young users from child predators on Instagram and Facebook. In a second part of that trial, the company may be ordered to pay additional penalties if the judge rules Meta created a public nuisance.
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In a statement following the Los Angeles ruling, New Mexico Attorney General Raul; Torrez said juries in both trials “have recognized that Meta's public deception and design features are putting children in harm's way" (4).
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The bigger win
These verdicts come as schools and state lawmakers explore phone bans, which might help throttle social media use among children and teens, but overall do not address potential harm to users.
In the case of K.G.M., she allegedly started watching YouTube at age 6, had an Instagram account by age 11, got on Snapchat at 13 and TikTok a year later (6). Each app, said her attorney Joseph VanZandt, was a "substantial factor in her spiral into anxiety and depression, fueled by low self-esteem and body dysmorphia” (5).
Her mother testified that she learned of the dangers of social media only after watching a 60 Minutes program, court documents show (5). She said if she’d known of the harms earlier she “would have never given K.G.M. a phone and things would be different.”
In an interview with WIRED, ahead of the Los Angeles trial, Benjamin Zipursky, a law professor at Fordham University School of Law said the goal of the attorneys was not just to“prevail and receive compensation for their individual clients” (6).
“They aim to get a series of victories in this sampling of so-called bellwether trials,” he said.
“Then they will try to pressure the companies into a mass settlement in which they pay out potentially billions of dollars and also agree to change their practices.”
Article sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our editorial ethics and guidelines.
Health Policy Watch (1); The New York Times (2); CNBC (3); NPR (4); Courthouse News Service (5); WIRED (6)
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Tara Losinski is an associate editor for Moneywise.
