Meta and YouTube Found Negligent in Landmark Social Media Addiction Case
- Reference: 0181102414
- News link: https://meta.slashdot.org/story/26/03/25/1745232/meta-and-youtube-found-negligent-in-landmark-social-media-addiction-case
- Source link:
> The bellwether case, which was brought by a now 20-year-old woman identified as K.G.M., had accused social media companies of creating products as addictive as cigarettes or digital casinos. K.G.M. sued Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, and Google's YouTube over features like infinite scroll and algorithmic recommendations that she claimed led to anxiety and depression.
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> The jury of seven women and five men will deliberate further to decide what further punitive damages the companies should pay for malice or fraud. The verdict in K.G.M.'s case -- one of thousands of lawsuits filed by teenagers, school districts and state attorneys general against Meta, YouTube, TikTok and Snap, which owns Snapchat -- was a major win for the plaintiffs. The finding validates a novel legal theory that social media sites or apps can cause personal injury. It is likely to factor into similar cases expected to go to trial this year, which could expose the internet giants to further financial damages and force changes to their products.
The verdict also comes on the heels of a New Mexico jury ruling that [3]found Meta liable for violating state law by failing to protect users of its apps from child predators.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/25/technology/social-media-trial-verdict.html
[2] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/01/27/2138239/internal-messages-may-doom-meta-at-social-media-addiction-trial
[3] https://meta.slashdot.org/story/26/03/25/172211/meta-loses-trial-after-arguing-child-exploitation-was-inevitable
Facbook and google(youtube) (Score:1)
Will state something in their press releases like: We will vigorously defend against this/s
How would you protect children at scale? (Score:2)
Let's get it clear up front, that any child exploitation is terrible.
At a scale the size of Facebook, what could they really do to "protect children"? Unless you take an extreme stance of not letting anyone on the platform under 18 (or 21), I don't think it's possible.
Re: (Score:2)
Facebook had a policy of not letting anyone under the age of 13 create an account, which my daughter and all her friends circumvented by simply lying about their age. Now they all have Facebook account that say they are 5 years older than their actual age.
Re: How would you protect children at scale? (Score:2)
They can remove the infinite scrolling feature, replace it with pages.
The recommendations could be turned off by default until someone goes to the settings menu and opts in.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, both good ideas, but then they'll be in a lawsuit that a child figured out how to turn on the "bad settings", or circumvent their parent's control setting.
Re:How would you protect children at scale? (Score:4, Insightful)
> At a scale the size of Facebook, what could they really do to "protect children"?
Are you really asking what one of the most valuable companies in the world could do to make their product less likely to result in mental health harm and sexual exploitation of children? Facebook KNEW its product was causing mental harm and resulting in numerous violations of children's rights, and they basically did nothing. Oh, unless you count actively working to make their products even more addictive.
> Unless you take an extreme stance of not letting anyone on the platform under 18 (or 21), I don't think it's possible.
Why is that "extreme"? There are plenty of products and activities that children are banned from using or doing. It's quite commonplace, actually.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
> Why is that "extreme"? There are plenty of products and activities that children are banned from using or doing. It's quite commonplace, actually.
It's a social network, children should have the same protections for freedom of expression that we give to every person. Silencing them, or not letting them use the town square, is really just excessive censorship. If we're talking about adult content focused sites, that fine, you'd have to show your ID to get alcohol, cannabis, or adult videos, but not for a social network.
> Are you really asking what one of the most valuable companies in the world could do to make their product less likely to result in mental health harm and sexual exploitation of children
Yes, the scale at which Facebook operates is not a simple moderation implementation. Facebook is large enough that you could define
Re: (Score:2)
> Let's get it clear up front, that any child exploitation is terrible. At a scale the size of Facebook, what could they really do to "protect children"? Unless you take an extreme stance of not letting anyone on the platform under 18 (or 21), I don't think it's possible.
There are two articles on the home page right now about Meta losing a court case. I think you meant to post this in the other one. This one is about social media addiction.
Re: (Score:2)
I just saw the other one, and posted on it. The point still hold, how at the scale of Facebook would you really keep kids safe?
Re: (Score:2)
> I just saw the other one, and posted on it. The point still hold, how at the scale of Facebook would you really keep kids safe?
You don't. That's what parents are for. Parents taking care of their own kids scales easily, because the number of parents is linear in the number of kids being monitored. Facebook taking of everyone's kids scales exponentially in the number of users, because anybody could be talking to any kid.
What they should be suing for are better tools for parents to monitor their kids' activity on Facebook. If you give the parents that, and if you force child accounts to have an associated parent account, then the
Meta and YouTube found negligent (Score:2)
No need to write more.
So, basically television (Score:4, Insightful)
You could watch linear format TV until your eyeballs fell out, too. It is an unending stream of content, curated for maximum viewer engagement. The difference was, TVs generally weren't something you'd have in your pocket (and when [1]TVs that did fit in your pocket became available, [wikipedia.org] they were limited to only receiving OTA broadcasts while you were out and about, and they went through batteries like nobody's business). So, if you were a kid who tried to watch too much TV, your parents would tell you to cut it out - and then take away the TV if you didn't get the message.
It seems like sometime between then and the smartphone era, parents forgot they're supposed to be the ones making sure their kids aren't getting "addicted" to things.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handheld_television
Re: (Score:2)
TV didnt provide updates from your friends or even personalized ads. In the old days, TV did not run 24/7 and stations went off the air over night. Then the blue screen 800 number commercials that ran over night were not very engaging. You had to wait for the broadcast time for the show you wanted to watch - you could not binge an entire season in a weekend. TV always lacked the instant gratification you get from apps and the internet.
TV is not a good comparison at all.
Re: (Score:2)
Have you been on social media lately? It doesn't take long before it also runs out of engaging content and starts showing you absolute slop. Generally, your "friends" have to sleep too, so actual social interaction has its limits as well.
There's really little inherently unique to social media that makes it more addicting than anything else kids have a tendency to overindulge in, other than the fact that having it on a smartphone in your pocket makes it extremely accessible.
Re: (Score:2)
I have Do Not Disturb hours on my phone, because too many of my friends are up at 3am texting. Really. No one is turning on the TV at that hour though.
Dumb precedent. Addiction is on the user. (Score:1)
I can buy cigarettes, alcohol, and any number of things that can become addictive. Yet things like alcohol addiction are still the user's responsibility.
Unless they want to claim social media is like a bar tender that didn't cut someone off or take their keys. Then maybe.
Stop with the excuses. Personal responsibility is still a thing, if you are under age then that responsibility falls on the parent.
Re:Dumb precedent. Addiction is on the user. (Score:4, Informative)
> I can buy cigarettes, alcohol, and any number of things that can become addictive. Yet things like alcohol addiction are still the user's responsibility.
Cigarettes, alcohol, and the like are not made freely available to kids.
Re: (Score:2)
So to fix this they just need to charge a subscription. And everyone will still see just as many ads.
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I guess we grew up differently because it was never that hard to get any of that stuff.
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> I guess we grew up differently
Cigarettes have been age restricted to 16 since 1883, and to 21 since 1920. Alcohol has been age restricted to 18 since 1960 and to 21 since 1984. So unless you're a 200 year old vampire, no, you did not.
Re: (Score:1)
They are made freely available to kids, just not by the manufacturer.
Re:Dumb precedent. Addiction is on the user. (Score:4, Insightful)
And those come with warnings, legal penalties on vendors who sell to known addicts or children, legal penalties for abusers, financial penalties to abusers, etc. There are cars which have their own breathalisers.
So, no, society has said that the responsibility is distributed. Which is correct.
This is bad and will cost everyone in the end. (Score:1)
I read about this and think about the stupid woman who sued McDonald's and won because she ordered a cup of HOT coffee at the drive thru and then stuck between her legs to hold it. Something happened and she squeezed her legs coffee came out and she got burned a little. She sued McDonalds because the HOT cup didn't warn her HOT coffee is HOT. You can't protect people from their own stupidity.
Everyone has issues and social issues are part of them. Just going to school you see that clear enough. Yo
Re: (Score:3)
> She sued McDonalds because the HOT cup didn't warn her HOT coffee is HOT. You can't protect people from their own stupidity.
Except that's not what happened at all. [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Repeating false things without researching them might make you stupid though. :-)
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_jaU5V9FUg
Think of the parents! (Score:1)
There's tons of options parents can tap to control the digital tools and toys their kids can access. The people pushing this are same ones who'll scream "DONT TELL ME HOW TO PARENT MY CHILD" when you attempt to hold them accountable for the action/inaction of their children.
WTF. Why do we let parents off the hook for this kind of thing?
I'm addicted to slashdot... (Score:4, Funny)
it makes me want to read the WWW all day. I'm gonna sue them! ;-) Let's see [1]http:/// [http]\.org
[1] http:/
I think (Score:2)
each and every one of us has been affected by meta. Let's all get a payout. Those idiots knew exactly what they were doing to society to make money.
Stop blaming everyone and everything else! (Score:2)
A few points that are being intentionally left out:
1. Addiction is a choice by an addict, except in rare cases.
2. A product should be legally addictive; otherwise you'd never use it.
3. A product being "addictive", is not the same as your choice to abuse it.
4. It's a parent's job to teach about the dangers of uncontrolled use.
5. It's a parent's job to secure their network to prevent abuse.
My network, for instance, at 10pm, 7 days a week, shuts off all internet to child owned devices. We have
well easy soultion dont build your business (Score:2)
on an addictive model after all we ban cocain , sugar ,alcohol & tobacco. Oh wait ...
Good. Burn Social Media to the ground. (Score:2)
Tax it out of existence. Seize the assets of the founders
We were getting on fine without it.
Human's biggest conceit that you could give every idiot and sociopath a megaphone and it wouldn't cause problems. Opened pandora's box of hateful things.
Then when you have created that mess, employ psychologists to make it addictive to sell adverts.
The world has never been more divided and we are in WW3. The line is clear between that and Social Media's profit from misinformation, political violence and fraud.
Socia
Easily overturned I wager (Score:1)
The very idea that an actual medical condition of diagnosis can be establish by a jury trial, is preposterous. One cannot become addicted to anything which does not physically put chemicals into you. No chemicals enter the body from social media; all of the relevant chemicals already exist within or otherwise apart from social media. Personal diligence governs release of said chemicals, and will not ever be reasonably concluded to have originated from social media, or video games, etc.
Coming soon off the back of this (Score:3, Insightful)
Even more invasive and privacy-destroying age verification.
THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
Re: (Score:2)
Slashdot is the only Social Media that I use.
I have been a user here for more than 25 years.
Therefore I am at least 25, no age verification needed.
Re: (Score:2)
Says the kid that bought or hacked your old account
Re: (Score:3)
A six digit UID is not one that could be remotely considered "old".
*goes off grumbling and looks for anyone he can shout at to get off his lawn.
Re: (Score:2)
To quote to OP:
"I have been a user here for more than 25 years."
I guess its a Classic account then and not a Vintage account like yours.
Re:Coming soon off the back of this (Score:5, Insightful)
> privacy-destroying age
"But what about my privacy!" yells person who then turns over the names of all their friends, pictures of their cat, details of what they ate for breakfast, their favorite books, movies, songs, and concerts, their location, their birthday, anniversary date, family members' names, and every website they've ever visited.
"Asking me to prove I'm an adult violates my privacy!" they yell.
Re: (Score:2)
There are lots of people who use Facebook, Twitter etc. anonymously especially political dissidents or people with lifestyles society doesn't accept. You post in a forum where anonymity is the default why you think people have different expectations from social media?
Re: (Score:2)
It is possible to verify age to the same degree (or better) than any "age verification service" without any sort of privacy invasion.
Re: (Score:2)
It would be painfully easy for a website to request a credit card number (which you only have if your 18) and then immediately delete it after your account was made. Now you could always say, well I don't trust them with my credit card. Fair enough, but guess what, at least a billion people do trust websites with our credit card and everything is working out just fine.
The real problem we have is a complete lack of data collection laws.
As others have said though, this is all just a push to de-anonymize the I
Re: (Score:2)
> Even more invasive and privacy-destroying age verification.
> THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
What does age verification have to do with social media addiction? Did you mean to post this in the *other* article on the home page about Meta losing a court case? :-D