A call in a Los Angeles courtroom on March 25, 2026, could turn into some of the consequential legal challenges Big Tech has ever faced.
It’s an inflection point in the worldwide debate over Big Tech liability: For the primary time, a US jury was asked to make your mind up whether the platform design itself could give rise to product liability — not due to what users post on them, but due to how they were built. The jury found that Meta and Google knew the design or operation of Instagram and YouTube. was or was likely to be dangerous. when utilized by a minor, and that the Platform did not adequately warn of this risk.
As one Technology Policy and Law ScholarI consider this decision will likely create a strong domino effect in jurisdictions across the United States and all over the world.
The jury awarded the plaintiff $3 million in damages and beneficial that the court award an extra $3 million in damages. The jury split the responsibility for the award between the businesses: 70% from Meta and 30% from Google. A Meta spokesperson said the corporate doesn’t agree with the choice. Review its legal options.
Separately, a jury in New Mexico on March 24 found that Metta Intentionally harmed the mental health of children and hid what he knew about child sexual exploitation on his platforms.
Case
The plaintiff within the Los Angeles case is a 20-year-old California woman identified only by her initials, KGM. She said she began using YouTube at age 6 and created an Instagram account at age 9. His lawsuit and testimony alleged that the platforms’ design features, including likes, algorithmic suggestion engines, infinite scroll, autoplay and more. Intentionally unexpected rewards, Made him addicted. The lawsuit alleges that his addiction fueled depression, anxiety, body image disorders — when someone sees themselves as ugly or ugly when they are not — and suicidal thoughts.
TikTok and Snapchat settled ahead of the lawsuit with KGM for undisclosed sums, leaving Meta and Google because the remaining defendants. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Testified before a jury. On 18 February
The stakes extend far beyond a plaintiff. The KGM case is a bellwether case, meaning the court selected it as a representative test case to assist determine decisions in all related cases. The cases involve roughly 1,600 plaintiffs, including greater than 350 families and greater than 250 school districts. Their claims are consolidated into one. California Judicial Council Coordination Proceedings, No. 5255. That means potential awards could run into the billions of dollars.
The California proceeding shares legal teams and evidence pools, including internal meta-documentationwith a federal Multidistrict Litigation which is fixed. Advance in court After this yeargathering 1000’s Federal cases.
Legal Innovation: Design as Defect
For a long time, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act Protects technology corporations from liability for content posted by their users. Whenever people sued for damages related to social media, corporations invoked Section 230, and Cases usually die early.
The KGM litigation used a distinct legal strategy: negligent product liability. The plaintiffs argued that the damage was caused not by third-party content but by the platform’s own engineering and design decisions, “information architecture” and Features that shape the user experience. of fabric. Unlimited scrolling, autoplay, notifications Calibrated to increase reflexes. And variable-reward systems operate on the identical behavioral principles as slot machines.
They are conscious. Product design choices. The plaintiff argued – and the jury agreed – that the platforms needs to be subject to the identical. Security Responsibilities As with some other manufactured product, their makers are thus held accountable. For negligence, Strict liability or BREACH OF WARRANTY OF FITNESS.
California Superior Court Judge Carolyn Kohl agreed that the claims warranted a jury trial. In its decision dated 5 November 2025 DENYING META’S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENTit distinguished between features related to the publication of content, which Section 230 may protect, and features resembling notification timing, engagement loops and the absence of meaningful parental controls, which it could not.
Here, Kohl established that the conduct vs. content distinction – treating algorithmic design decisions as an organization’s own conduct and never as a protected publication of third-party speech – was a viable legal theory for a jury to review. This excellent approach to evaluating each design feature individually and recognizing the increasing design complexity of technology products represents a possible road map for courts across the country.
What did the businesses know?
The doctrine of product liability depends partly on what corporations knew in regards to the risks of their designs. A 2021 leak of internal meta-documents, widely generally known as “Facebook Papers” Disclosure that the corporate’s own researchers The flag was planted Concerns in regards to the effects of Instagram on youth body image and mental health.
Internal communications revealed within the KGM proceedings include exchanges between Meta employees comparing the platform’s effects to promoting drugs and gambling. Whether this internal awareness constitutes the type of corporate knowledge that supports liability is a central factual query for the jury to make your mind up.
Ray Lustig/The Washington Post via Getty Images
There is a transparent analogy with tobacco litigation. In the Nineties, plaintiffs were successful against tobacco corporations. Proving that they hid evidence. About the addictive and deadly nature of their products. In KGM, the plaintiff here is making the identical basic argument: where corporate knowledge, intentional targeting and public denial, liability follows.
KGM’s lead counsel within the case, Mark Lanieris similar lawyer who has won multi-billion dollar verdicts. Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder Litigationindicating the size of accountability they’re following.
Science: Contested but fruitful
The scientific evidence on social media and youth mental health is real but truly complex. gave Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) doesn’t classify social media use as an addictive disorder. Researchers like Amy Orbin Extensive studies have shown that Small average associations Between Social Media Use and Decline in Health.
Yet Orbán himself has warned that this average could mask serious losses by a subset of vulnerable young consumers. Especially girls aged 12 to 15 years. The legal query under the speculation shouldn’t be whether social media harms everyone equally, but whether platform designers had a responsibility to account for potential interactions between their design features and the vulnerabilities of developing minds, especially when internal evidence suggested they were aware of the risks.
First, a manufacturer has an obligation to exercise reasonable care in designing its product, and this duty extends to damages which can be reasonably foreseeable. Second, the plaintiff must show that the style of injury suffered was a foreseeable consequence of the design alternative. The manufacturer shouldn’t be required to estimate the precise injury to the plaintiff, but the overall category of harm should be inside the range that an affordable designer would expect.
This is why the Facebook Papers and internal meta-research are legally so vital within the KGM case: they go directly to ascertain that the corporate’s own researchers have identified the particular categories of harm — depression, body dysmorphia, patterns of coercive use amongst teenage girls — that the plaintiffs allege they suffered. If the corporate’s own data flagged these risks and leadership continued at the identical design pace, that may strengthen the forecast factor considerably.
Why it matters
Even if the science is unsettled, the legal and policy landscape is changing rapidly. In 2025 alone, 20 US states enacted the brand new law. Laws governing children’s use of social media. And this wave shouldn’t be only in America. Countries resembling the UK, Australia, Denmark, France and Brazil are also moving forward with specific laws, including bans on social media for under-16s.
The KGM trial represents something more fundamental: the proposition that algorithmic design decisions are product decisions, with real responsibilities for safety and accountability. If this decision causes this framework to take hold, each platform might want to rethink not only what content is displayed, but why and the way it’s delivered.