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(AMERICAN GREATNESS) – Two consequential jury trials in New Mexico and California have ended with verdicts against social media giant Meta following lawsuits claiming that children were harmed by social media addiction.
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Breitbart reports that a New Mexico jury imposed $375 million in civil penalties against Meta on Tuesday after finding that its social media had harmed children’s mental health and that the company had concealed data about child sexual exploitation on the platform.
The massive civil judgment was based on a maximum penalty of $5,000 per violation of state consumer protection law, multiplied by thousands of social media accounts for minor children.
Regarding the New Mexico verdict, a Meta spokesperson wrote: “We respectfully disagree with the verdict and will appeal. We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and are clear about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors or harmful content. We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online.”
On Wednesday, a similar lawsuit in California resulted in another $3 million judgment against Meta, which operates Instagram, and Google, which operates YouTube, after the tech giants were accused of designing their algorithms to hook young users without concern for their well being.
The two verdicts may have opened the door for a wave of litigation that could force the tech industry to reexamine its child protection policies.
The Associated Press reports that Meta, the parent of Instagram and Facebook, and Google-owned YouTube issued statements disagreeing with the verdict and vowed to explore their legal options, which include appeals.
Jurors in that case determined that Meta and YouTube were negligent in the design or operation of their respective platforms, and that this negligence was a substantial factor in causing harm to the plaintiff.
Regarding the California verdict, Google spokesperson Jose Castañeda said the verdict misrepresents YouTube, “which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site.”
According to Breitbart, the verdicts do not currently mandate specific changes to social media platform designs or the algorithms that deliver content to billions of users worldwide.
However, a second phase of the New Mexico trial scheduled for May could result in court-ordered changes to Meta’s platforms for local users.
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This article was originally published in American Greatness.
