Both Google and Meta deny the allegations in the complaint. “Providing young people with a safer and healthier experience has always been key to our work,” Google spokesman José Castañeda said in a statement. “Working with experts in youth, mental health and parenting, we have created services and policies to ensure young people have age-appropriate experiences and parents have strong control.”
“For more than a decade, we have listened to parents, worked with experts and law enforcement, and conducted in-depth research to understand the issues that matter most,” Meta spokeswoman Stephanie Otway said in a statement. “We’re using these insights to make meaningful changes, like introducing teen accounts with built-in security and giving parents tools to manage their teens’ experiences.”
The Bellwether case
KGM started watching YouTube at the age of six, started an Instagram account at 11, started Snapchat at 13, and TikTok a year later – with each app allegedly deepening “her spiral into anxiety and depression, fueled by low self-esteem and body dysmorphia.” according to her attorney Joseph VanZandt. She and her mother, Karen Glenn, filed a lawsuit against Google’s Meta, YouTube, Snap and TikTok, alleging that features such as “autoplay” and “infinite scroll” contributed to her addiction to social media and that her operate contributed to her anxiety and depression, making her feel more insecure. (Snap and TikTok settled the case with KGM before trial. Terms were not disclosed.)
Glenn he testified last year that she did not realize the harm these platforms could cause to her daughter, and that she would not have given her the phone if she had known about this harm in advance. Bergman says KGM’s lawsuit was chosen as a “leading” case because she “represents many other young women who have suffered serious mental health damage, ailments and emotional disturbances as a result of their use of social media.”
The KGM trial is the first of 22 such trials of female fighters taking place in Los Angeles Superior Court. A positive result in the plaintiffs’ favor could give the remaining approximately 1,600 litigants significant leverage and potentially force tech companies to adopt recent protections. The research also aims to raise wider awareness of social media business models and practices. “If the public reacts very negatively to what comes to light or what a jury finds, it could impact legislation at the state or federal level,” Zipursky adds.
Bergman, who has represented asbestos victims for 25 years, says this trial is like a repeat of what happened in the past. “When Frances Haugen testified before Congress and revealed for the first time what social media companies know their platforms are doing to reach vulnerable young people, I realized it was an asbestos issue again,” Bergman says.
Dividing lines
In an attempt to draw parallels with the product liability cases against Gigantic Tobacco and the auto industry, the main argument the plaintiffs make is that the major tech companies designed their social media platforms negligently, meaning they failed to take reasonable steps to avoid causing harm. “Specifically, plaintiffs argue that design features such as infinite scrolling and autoplay have caused certain injuries in minors, including eating disorders, self-harm and suicide,” says Mary Anne Franks, a law professor at George Washington University.
Tech companies, on the other hand, will likely focus on causality and defending free speech. “Defendants will argue that it was third-party content that caused plaintiffs’ injuries, rather than the access to that content provided by the platforms,” Franks says. Companies could also likely argue, he says, “that to the extent that companies’ content moderation decisions are related, the decision-making process is protected by the First Amendment,” citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling in Moody v. Netchoice.