SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A New Mexico jury’s finding that Meta platforms are harmful to children’s mental health and consumer-safety obligations thrust the company into the center of a growing wave of U.S. child-safety litigation, with other cases still winding through courts.
The New Mexico case was the first jury verdict in the series this year, according to the reporting, and it came with a $375 million penalty imposed after a nearly seven-week trial.
Jurors found that Meta violated parts of the state’s Unfair Practices Act, and prosecutors’ arguments at trial included claims that Meta hid what it knew about the dangers of child sexual exploitation on its platforms and impacts on child mental health.
In reaching the verdict, the jury agreed with allegations that Meta made false or misleading statements and that Meta engaged in what the article described as “unconscionable” trade practices that unfairly took advantage of children’s vulnerabilities and inexperience.
The Los Angeles case is separate and still in deliberations at the time of the reporting, and it centers on plaintiffs arguing that platform design features — including how services are engineered to keep users engaged — are addictive for young users.
The article said the plaintiffs’ theory in that Los Angeles case involves a 20-year-old identified by the initials “KGM,” whose case, along with selected plaintiffs in bellwether trials, could shape how similar lawsuits play out as both sides test their arguments before a jury.
“This is a monumental inflection point in social media,” said Matthew Bergman, of the Social Media Victims Law Center, which represents more than 1,000 plaintiffs in lawsuits against social media companies.
In Oakland, California, a trial scheduled for this summer will pit school districts against social media companies before U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, with the article describing it as a multidistrict litigation naming six public school districts from around the country as bellwethers.
Plaintiffs’ counsel described the cornerstone of both the social media and opioid cases as addiction, with Jayne Conroy, a lawyer on the plaintiffs’ trial team, saying that in the social media case they focused on children’s developing brains and addiction as a threat to their well-being.
Both lawsuits, Conroy said in the reporting, claim negligence on the part of the defendants, and she compared what plaintiffs sought to prove in the opioid cases about knowledge of risks and downplaying them to what plaintiffs argue about the social media companies’ decisions.
Companies in the broader set of cases have disputed that their products are addictive, and during questioning in the Los Angeles trial, the article said Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg testified that he still agrees with a previous statement that existing scientific work has not proven social media causes mental health harms.
As appeals and any settlement discussions move forward, the reporting said resolution could take years, and it also noted that the outcomes could challenge defenses the companies are expected to raise, including the First Amendment shield and Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which protects tech firms from liability for material posted on their platforms.
“While Meta has doubled down in this area to address mounting concerns by rolling out safety features, several recent reports suggest that the company continues to aggressively prioritize teens as a user base and doesn’t always adhere to its own rules,” said Emarketer analyst Minda Smiley in the article.
Meta, for its part, said in a statement after the New Mexico verdict that it disagrees and will appeal, arguing that it works hard to keep people safe on its platforms and is clear about challenges in identifying and removing bad actors or harmful content.