{"id":102092,"date":"2026-02-25T11:43:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T14:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tech.einnews.com\/article\/895445873"},"modified":"2026-02-25T11:43:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T14:43:09","slug":"plaintiff-set-to-testify-against-tech-companies-in-landmark-social-media-addiction-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/2026\/02\/25\/plaintiff-set-to-testify-against-tech-companies-in-landmark-social-media-addiction-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"Plaintiff set to testify against tech companies in landmark social media addiction trial"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES \u2014 The first plaintiff to take major social media companies to trial is expected to take the stand Wednesday to speak about the harms she says the tech platforms inflicted on her mental health as a child.<\/p>\n

The plaintiff, who is now 20 and is identified in court by her initials, K.G.M., is at the center of a bellwether case in Los Angeles County Superior Court that could set a legal precedent about whether social media platforms are responsible for causing mental health issues in children.<\/p>\n

The trial is the first in a consolidated group of cases brought against Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Snap by more than 1,600 plaintiffs, including over 350 families and over 250 school districts. The plaintiffs accuse the tech companies of knowingly designing addictive products harmful to young users\u2019 mental health.<\/p>\n

K.G.M., who was a minor at the time of the incidents outlined in her lawsuit, claims that her early use of social media led to addiction and worsened her mental health problems. Her lawsuit alleges that social media companies made deliberate design choices to make their platforms more addictive to children for purposes of profit.<\/p>\n

\u201cDefendants know children are in a developmental stage that leaves them particularly vulnerable to the addictive effects of these features,\u201d her lawsuit says. \u201cDefendants target them anyway, in pursuit of additional profit.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Historically, social media platforms have largely been shielded by Section 230, a provision added to the Communications Act of 1934 that says internet companies are not liable for content users post. TikTok and Snap reached settlements with K.G.M. before the trial, but they remain defendants in a series of similar lawsuits expected to go to trial this year.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit highlights a variety of features that it claims the platforms use to \u201cexploit children and adolescents,\u201d including \u201can algorithmically-generated, endless feed to keep users scrolling,\u201d rewards that encourage people to keep using the platform, and \u201cincessant\u201d notifications, as well as \u201cinadequate\u201d measures for age verification and parental control.<\/p>\n

\u201cDisconnected \u2018Likes\u2019 have replaced the intimacy of adolescent friendships. Mindless scrolling has displaced the creativity of play and sport,\u201d the lawsuit says. \u201cWhile presented as \u2018social,\u2019 [the platforms] have in myriad ways promoted disconnection, disassociation, and a legion of resulting mental and physical harms.\u201d<\/p>\n

So far during the trial, K.G.M.\u2019s lawyers have called on Instagram head Adam Mosseri, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and YouTube\u2019s vice president of engineering, Cristos Goodrow, to testify before the jury.<\/p>\n

Mosseri argued in his defense of Instagram<\/a> that although excessive use of the app could pose a problem, it\u2019s \u201cimportant to differentiate between clinical addiction and problematic use.\u201d He added that while it is in Instagram\u2019s business interests to attract as many users as possible, he believes \u201cprotecting minors in the long run is good for profit and business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zuckerberg echoed similar sentiments<\/a> last week, saying Meta prioritizes building \u201ca community that is sustainable\u201d over boosting users\u2019 screen time.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf you do something that\u2019s not good for people, maybe they\u2019ll spend more time [on Instagram] short term, but if they\u2019re not happy with it, they\u2019re not going to use it over time,\u201d Zuckerberg said in his testimony. \u201cI\u2019m not trying to maximize the amount of time people spend every month.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pressed about Meta\u2019s age verification policies, Zuckerberg said that despite Instagram\u2019s longtime policy prohibiting children under 13 from making accounts, he believes there are kids \u201cwho lie about their age in order to use the services.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meta has developed measures over time to try to detect underage users, Zuckerberg said. But K.G.M.\u2019s attorney, Mark Lanier, noted that the age verification features were not available when many children joined Instagram. K.G.M. got on the app at age 9.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always wish we could have gotten there sooner,\u201d Zuckerberg said of the safety tools Meta added in recent years.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Meta said in a statement that \u201cthe question for the jury in Los Angeles is whether Instagram was a substantial factor in the plaintiff\u2019s mental health struggles. The evidence will show she faced many significant, difficult challenges well before she ever used social media.\u201d<\/p>\n

K.G.M. was present during part of Zuckerberg\u2019s testimony but did not speak.<\/p>\n

Goodrow, who took the stand Monday and Tuesday ahead of K.G.M.\u2019s testimony, was pressed about YouTube\u2019s self-proclaimed \u201cbig, hairy, audacious goal\u201d of achieving 1 billion hours of daily watch time by the end of 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cYouTube is not designed to maximize time,\u201d Goodrow said Monday. \u201cNow we measure in time well spent.\u201d<\/p>\n

YouTube\u2019s CEO was scheduled to testify, as well, but was removed from the witness list last week. Lanier told NBC News that his team is \u201crunning out of time allowed by the court to put on our case.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/strong> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… the harms she says the tech<\/span> platforms inflicted on her mental … districts. The plaintiffs accuse the tech<\/span> companies of knowingly designing addictive …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102092\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}