Arguments are set to begin Monday in a landmark US trial that could establish a legal precedent on whether social media companies deliberately designed their platforms to lead to addiction in children.
A landmark US trial examining whether social media companies deliberately design their platforms to addict children is set to begin on Monday. The case forms part of a broader wave of litigation across the United States and will be heard at the Supreme Court in Los Angeles.
Defendants at the trial are Alphabet and Meta, the tech giants behind YouTube and Instagram.
Meta co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg along with other CEOs and bosses of Instagram and YouTube, are expected to be called as witnesses during the trial.
Social media firms are accused in hundreds of lawsuits leading to the social media addiction among young users that has led to depression, eating disorders — anorexia nervosa and bulimia — and even suicide.
Australia has full-fledged imposed a social media ban for children under 16 years of age, countries including Spain, and France have also announced plans to impose a similar ban and reduce the risk of depression and anxiety among children below 16 years.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs are borrowing strategies used in the 1990s and 2000s against the tobacco industry, which faced a similar onslaught of lawsuits arguing that companies sold a harmful product.
On Friday, lawyers for the defence unsuccessfully sought to bar plaintiffs from comparing their platforms to tobacco and other addictive products.
Similar actions have been taken after multiple cases reported on mental harm because of the excessive use of social media. The trial before Judge Carolyn Kuhl focuses on allegations that a 20-year-old woman identified by the initials KGM suffered severe mental harm because she became addicted to social media as a child.
“This is the first time that a social media company has ever had to face a jury for harming kids,” Social Media Victims Law Center founder Matthew Bergman, whose team is involved in more than 1,000 such cases, told new agency AFP.
The Australian government, BBC reported, found through a 2025 study that 96 per cent of kids aged 10 to 15 used social media, with 70 per cent experiencing exposure to harmful content, sexual grooming from adults, while more than half experienced cyberbullying.
Internet titans have argued that they are shielded by Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act, which frees them of responsibility for what social media users post.
The case mostly argues that the firms are culpable for business models designed to hold people’s attention and to promote content that can harm their mental health.
“The allegations in these complaints are simply not true,” said Jose Castaneda, a YouTube spokesperson.
“Providing young people with a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work,” he added.
Profit over wellbeing
Meta has rejected the allegations surrounding depression among kids and vowed to defend itself in court. Other social media platforms, Snapchat and TikTok are named as defendants in the suit, but struck settlement deals before the start of the trial.
A separate lawsuit accusing Meta of putting profit over the wellbeing of young users is also getting under way in New Mexico.
“Our investigation into Meta’s social media platforms demonstrates that they are not safe spaces for children but rather prime locations for predators to trade child pornography and solicit minors for sex,” New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez said in a statement, as quoted by AFP.
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