By Deni Ellis Béchard
Publication Date: 2026-04-01 17:45:00
A Los Angeles jury has delivered a verdict in the first bellwether social-media-addiction case to go to trial. On March 25 jurors found Meta and Google negligent in designing Instagram and YouTube and in failing to warn users about their risks. They awarded the plaintiff $6 million in damages, with Meta assigned 70 percent of the liability and Google 30 percent.
The verdict alone does not set precedent, and both companies say they will appeal. But it turns a long-running argument about social media into a live legal question: Should the law treat the modern feed as protected publishing or as a product whose design can be judged for safety?
It is also a test case in a much larger fight: roughly 1,600 cases are pending in California alongside more than 10,000 individual cases and some 800 school district claims nationwide. The day before the Los Angeles verdict was reached, a New Mexico jury found Meta liable under the state’s consumer protection law for misleading consumers about
