Wednesday 25 March 2026 – 10:40 PM
A jury in Los Angeles issued an unprecedented ruling in favor of a young woman who accused Meta and Google of causing her addiction to social networks since her childhood. The legal committees concluded in their decision submitted to Judge Carolyn Kuhl that the two companies deliberately designed Algorithms An addiction took a toll on the mental health of a 20-year-old known as Kylie.
A historic decision by an American jury regarding teenage addiction to digital platforms
Lawyers for the parent company of Instagram, which it owns alongside Facebook and WhatsApp, argued that the aforementioned platform was not the main cause of the plaintiff’s psychological suffering.
According to the BBC, after a trial that lasted about 5 weeks, a jury held the social network 70% responsible for the damage, while the search engine’s YouTube platform took 30% of the blame.
The responsible administration issued a statement confirming its respectful disagreement with the ruling, indicating that it is currently evaluating its available legal options.
The young woman, known as Callie, was awarded $3 million (£2.2 million) in compensation, in a ruling that is likely to have repercussions for hundreds of similar cases currently being heard in US courts.
The network founder’s testimony and secret settlements came during his first ever appearance before a jury last February. CEO Mark Zuckerberg relied on his old platforms’ policy that prevents users under the age of 13 from joining.
According to the same source, when confronted with documents and internal research proving his company’s knowledge of young children using its applications, the site’s founder insisted that he had always hoped to achieve faster progress in identifying young users, stressing that they would reach the right track over time.
Most of the trial proceedings focused on the photo application, while the Snap and TikTok platforms, which were initially defendants, reached undisclosed settlements with the plaintiff before the start of the trial.
