Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has requested a Los Angeles judge to set aside the jury verdict that found the company liable for causing a young woman’s mental health problems, in what represents a pivotal case examining whether social media companies deliberately designed addictive platforms that harm young Americans.
Reuters reports that Meta has filed a motion asking a Los Angeles judge to overturn a landmark jury verdict or order a new trial in a case that found the tech giant liable for a woman’s depression. The filing, submitted on Monday and made public on Wednesday, challenges the March verdict that determined Meta and Google bore responsibility for designing addictive social media platforms.
The jury concluded in March that both Meta and YouTube parent company Google had been negligent in designing their platforms and failed to adequately warn users about potential dangers. The verdict ordered Meta to pay $4.2 million in damages, while Google was assessed $1.8 million. Google has similarly announced plans to appeal and has requested the court either set aside the verdict or grant a new trial.
The case involved a plaintiff identified as Kaley G.M., whose lawsuit represented one of thousands of similar legal actions filed against social media companies by individuals, families, school districts, and states across the country. Snap and TikTok were also named as defendants in the original lawsuit but reached settlements with the plaintiff before the trial commenced.
In its filing, Meta argued it should be protected from liability under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a 1996 federal law that generally shields online platforms from legal responsibility for user-generated content. The company contended that evidence presented during the trial repeatedly connected Kaley’s mental health struggles to the content she viewed on the platforms rather than to design features such as autoplay and infinite scroll.
The Los Angeles trial served as a bellwether case for state court proceedings, functioning as a test case that could influence settlement negotiations across the broader landscape of pending lawsuits against social media companies. These cases collectively allege that companies intentionally designed their platforms to be addictive, contributing to a nationwide mental health crisis affecting teenagers and young people.
The outcome of Meta’s motion and any subsequent appeals could establish important precedents for how courts balance platform liability with existing legal protections. The interpretation of Section 230 is expected to be a central feature of any appeal process, according to legal observers.
Many conservatives, including Justice Clarence Thomas, have sharply criticized the broad immunity granted to Big Tech by Section 230:
In April last year, Thomas suggested that the Supreme Court, in the absence of action by Congress, might have to narrow the protections of Section 230 in an appropriate case.
He repeated the same argument in blunter terms this week, writing “Assuming Congress does not step in to clarify §230’s scope, we should do so in an appropriate case.”
Section 230 of the CDA is integral to the business model of major tech platforms because it ensures they are not held legally liable for the billions of items of user-generated content hosted by them.
Read more at Reuters here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of AI, free speech, and online censorship.