A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Google and Meta are to blame for a woman's anxiety and depression and should pay $6 million because of it.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
That's what a Los Angeles jury found on Wednesday in a verdict that connected Silicon Valley companies to damage in young people's mental health. The plaintiff in this case said she became addicted to social media as a child. The damages are tiny compared with the company's net worth of trillions of dollars, but the case could have huge consequences for the future of social media.
MARTÍNEZ: NPR correspondent Bobby Allyn was in the courtroom. Bobby, why is this trial so important?
BOBBY ALLYN, BYLINE: So it's been hard to sue tech companies for decades because of this federal law known as Section 230 that protects their content. So this trial did something different. It focused on features baked into the design of Google's YouTube and Meta's Instagram and Facebook - things like the algorithm, the infinite scroll, autoplay. The woman at the center of this case, known as Kaley, told jurors that these features made it nearly impossible to put down her phone and led her down some dark paths. She told the jury that social media worsened her depression, anxiety. She developed body-image issues. Her lawyers argued that social media companies designed the apps this way deliberately, that the apps basically should be seen as defective products that contributed to her mental health struggles. Here's Mark Lanier, who was the main lawyer representing Kaley.
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MARK LANIER: We've sent a message with this that you will be held accountable just because of the features alone that drive addiction. That's a huge message for these companies.
MARTÍNEZ: OK. So those companies, Meta and Google - how have they responded to the verdict?
ALLYN: Yeah, they're vowing to appeal. Here's Meta's Ashly Nikkole Davis after the verdict.
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ASHLY NIKKOLE DAVIS: Teen mental health is profoundly complex and cannot be linked to a single app. We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously, as every case is different, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online.
MARTÍNEZ: So, Bobby, this case was about one person - Kaley. How could the verdict, though, affect the entire social media industry?
ALLYN: Yeah. Well, this case is actually one of 2,000 consolidated cases brought by parents, school district and state officials alleging that tech companies intentionally built social media apps to operate like a digital slot machine. The Los Angeles trial that I was here for was the first test case of this huge group of lawsuits. There will now be additional test cases brought to trial. And eventually, A, social media companies are expected to settle this huge litigation. When lawyers suing the companies have been asked, you know, what changes could be in store, they've pointed to what this trial has been about - all of the design features that keep people sucked into their social media feeds. So it's possible social media companies will be wholly refigured. You know, the way that we see social media now may be totally different than what it looks like some years from now. This is already being compared, A, to the huge litigation against Big Tobacco in the 1990s that forced the industry to stop targeting minors in advertising. Many see this verdict in Los Angeles as the start of a massive reckoning.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, this is just the - what? - second big verdict against Meta this week, right?
ALLYN: That's right. So in New Mexico, there was a separate jury that ordered Meta to pay $375 million - so much more - for failing to protect kids from predators online. Again, for a company worth $1.5 trillion, this won't exactly make them crumble, but it has been a punishing week for Silicon Valley, and its critics say the floodgates are only about to be unleashed.
MARTÍNEZ: NPR's Bobby Allyn. Bobby, thanks.
ALLYN: Thanks, A.
MARTÍNEZ: And we should note, Google is a financial supporter of NPR. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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