Instagram and YouTube have been recently accused of creating “addiction machines” as a landmark trial began in California examining the mental health effects the platforms have on children. In the court’s opening argument, attorney Mark Lanier argued that his client, plaintiff “KGM,” suffered from mental health issues as a result of her social media addiction. The main claim of the case, as Lanier said, is that “These companies built machines designed to addict the brains of children, and they did it on purpose.”
Lawyers for Meta and YouTube have counterargued that any addiction stems from other issues in an individual’s life, not their negligence. “It’s not trying to get in your brain and rewire it,” Luis Li, YouTube’s lawyer, said of the app’s video recommendation algorithm. “It’s just asking you what you like to watch.”
While Instagram argued no decisions made to the app design were taken to harm their consumers, as “it’s not good for the company over the long run to make decisions that profit us but are poor for people’s well-being; that’s eventually going to be very problematic for the company.” YouTube also claimed to not be a social media platform but a video streaming platform, like Netflix.
Both companies’ largest counterarguments rest on the fact that addictive design is hard to prove, and as such, proving the plaintiff was potentially weak of mind is on the table.
Lanier, however, presented emails from Zuckerberg that demanded that “time spent increases by 12%” on Meta platforms to meet internal business goals, while accusing YouTube of trying to instate itself as a “digital babysitting service” due to them charging more for ad spots on their kids’ platform than on regular YouTube.
While neither directly proves an intentional design for addiction, it does make the argument more prevalent, which means the trial still has much ground to cover.
Currently, Meta’s attorney, Paul Schmidt, questioned if Instagram was a substantial factor in KGM’s mental health struggles. He portrayed KGM as someone who had been dealing with family turmoil, neglect, verbal and physical abuse, and bullying from her parents to strengthen Meta’s argument of additional factors being at play. He even referenced records that described domestic violence in KGM’s family history and seeing therapists starting when she was three years old, likely before YouTube and Instagram played a large role in her life.
Schmidt brought up statements KGM herself had made about her situation, where she said that her mother had screamed at her, called her stupid, and had made her want to kill herself. “I recognize those are tough quotes,” Schmidt told the jury. “In a case that’s about psychological distress, that is what you have to consider.”
The proceedings started on Monday, and this case is poised to be a six-week trial, meaning there is still much to come regarding it. This trial is being regarded as a landmark trial due to the relevancy of the issue and the significant implications it may have to set precedents for others like it. With a massive surge in digital spaces and social media having progressively more of a pull on day-to-day society, whether or not companies can be held liable for mental damages done will dictate much of the future for social media.
