“Jury finds Meta and Google negligent in social media harms trial”, 25 March 2026

A California jury on Wednesday found that Meta and Google were to blame for the depression and anxiety of a woman who compulsively used social media as a small child, awarding her $6 million in a rare verdict holding Silicon Valley accountable for its role in fueling a youth mental health crisis.

The jurors concluded that Meta and Google should pay the woman $3 million in compensatory damages and an additional $3 million in punitive damages, with Meta on the hook for 70% of that amount…

Meta's apps, including Instagram, and Google's YouTube, the jury concluded, were deliberately built to be addictive and the companies' executives knew this and failed to protect their youngest users…

Meta and Google vowed to appeal. In a statement, Meta said teen mental health is "profoundly complex and cannot be linked to a single app," saying the company remains confident in its record of protecting teens online.

"This case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site," said Google spokesman José Castañeda…

The trial is a test case, known as a bellwether, tied to about 2,000 other pending lawsuits brought by parents and school districts arguing that social media giants should be considered manufacturers of defective products for hooking a generation of young people to social media feeds.

Throughout the case, the companies insisted that there is no scientific proof that social media causes mental health issues, suggesting that they are being used as a scapegoat for the multi-faceted emotional issues children face that can have many root causes.

Snapchat and TikTok were also defendants in the case, but both companies settled with KGM before the trial began…