Overview
- Jury proceedings in Los Angeles are underway through late March, with Meta and YouTube defending against allegations their products harmed a user who began using the platforms as a child.
- Snap and TikTok settled before trial, leaving Meta’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube as the remaining defendants in this first jury test among more than 1,500 suits.
- Plaintiffs argue features such as infinite scroll, autoplay, algorithmic recommendations and notifications were engineered to encourage compulsive use and contributed to anxiety, body image issues and suicidal thoughts.
- Instagram head Adam Mosseri testified that the company rejects the term “clinical addiction,” while internal Meta research known as Project MYST indicated parental controls had little impact on teens’ compulsive use and was not publicized.
- YouTube’s top executive will not take the stand after a schedule change by plaintiffs, and both Meta and YouTube deny liability and cite safety measures and parental tools as evidence of efforts to protect younger users.