"Heavy use of social media brings anxiety and body dysmorphia" :::: Make big techies Answerable :::: A court Ruling that Meta and YouTube deliberately designed "addictive products" marks WATERSHED moment for social media

In the season of US/Israel-Iran war ... another war is on and a vital one !!  

Jury in Los Angeles awards plaintiff damages of $6m, with Meta to pay 70% and YouTube the remainder

It's legal war in courts ... against big techies who have over the years grew "irresponsible". Two courts have delivered verdicts with long term and short term implications. These are refreshing verdicts !!

 

Meta, 

YouTube, 

Snapchat and 

TikTok are facing thousands of similar lawsuits in US courts, testing if their platforms were designed to be addictive.

Meta and YouTube have been found liable for deliberately designing addictive products that hooked a young user and led to her being harmed, a jury ruled.

 

Jurors found the tech companies to be both negligent and having failed to provide adequate warnings about the potential dangers of their products.

Meta ordered to pay $375m after being found liable in child exploitation case

New Mexico hails ‘historic’ win after jury finds firm misled consumers over safety and enabled harm against users ::::  

This was a big development and in more ways than one.

The lawsuit – the first jury trial to find Meta liable for acts committed on its platform – was brought by the state’s attorney general office in December 2023.

It followed a two-year 'The Guardian' (London newspaper) investigation published in April of that year revealing how Facebook and Instagram had become marketplaces for child sex trafficking. That investigation was cited several times in the complaint.

“The jury’s verdict is a historic victory for every child and family who has paid the price for Meta’s choice to put profits over kids’ safety,” said New Mexico’s attorney general, Raúl Torrez.

“Meta executives knew their products harmed children, disregarded warnings from their own employees, and lied to the public about what they knew. Today the jury joined families, educators, and child safety experts in saying enough is enough.” 

The court Ruling that Meta and YouTube deliberately designed "addictive products" marks possible watershed moment for social media. 

big tech to heel 

‘The era of invincibility is over’ 

The young woman at the heart of what has been called the tech industry’s “big tobacco” moment was on YouTube at six and Instagram by nine. More than a decade later, she says, she still can’t live without the social media she became addicted to.

“I can’t, it’s too hard to be without it,” Kaley, now 20, told a jury at Los Angeles’ superior court. 

This week, five men and seven women handed down a verdict on the design of two of the world’s most popular apps that vindicated Kaley’s position.

The ruling sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley and sparked hope among families and child safety campaigners, reports 'The Guardian'.  

It was one case centred on the suffering of one young person who became depressed at 10 and self-harmed, but Kaley, referred to by her first name or the initials KGM in order to protect her privacy, was the figurehead for a much bigger fight.

“We wanted them to feel it,” one of the jurors explained to reporters. “We wanted them to realise this was unacceptable.”  

Internationally, governments are starting to curb big tech’s grip on children’s attention. 

The Indonesian government is following Australia in mandating the deactivation of “high-risk” social media accounts belonging to children under 16. 

Brazil enacted an online safety law to protect children against compulsive use.

In the UK the prime minister, Keir Starmer, responded to the Los Angeles verdict saying: “We need to do more to protect children.” 

“The era of big tech invincibility is over,” said the Tech Oversight Project, a Washington DC watchdog that styles itself as a David to Silicon Valley’s Goliath. Even Prince Harry weighed in: “The truth has been heard and precedent has been set.” The share prices of Meta and Alphabet, Google’s parent company, sank.

The verdict was the second blow in a week for big tech after Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, was ordered to pay $375m (£282m) by a New Mexico court. A jury found it misled consumers about the safety of its platforms. 

These had features that “enabled paedophiles and predators to engage in child sexual exploitation” and were intentionally designed to get young people addicted to them, said the state’s department of justice.  

***  

It all perhaps means 

optimism is starting to grow among safety campaigners. 

Esther Ghey, the mother of murdered British teenager Brianna Ghey, who sees many similarities between Kaley’s story and Brianna’s, is hopeful that change is coming.

“Finally, I think this is going to create a shift,” she told the Guardian. 

Ghey’s daughter was killed in 2023 and she believes 

... social media addiction contributed to her daughter’s mental health issues, 

....

leading to her taking risks with her personal safety. 

Brianna became isolated like Kaley through heavy use of social media, and suffered from anxiety and body dysmorphia.

ends