{"id":9439,"date":"2026-03-25T23:01:27","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T23:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/?p=9439"},"modified":"2026-03-25T23:01:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T23:01:27","slug":"the-l-a-verdict-could-haunt-social-media-platforms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/?p=9439","title":{"rendered":"The L.A. verdict could haunt social media platforms"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"content-chunk\">\n<p>Bellwether trials are complicated but consequential. Pulled from a morass of claims, they\u2019re designed to test how a jury responds to a broader legal theory. Often, they fall flat.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"content-chunk\">\n<p>Today in a California court, one did not. <\/p>\n<p>Kaley, a 20-year-old who alleged that social media <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/fastcompany.com\/91494875\/mark-zuckerberg-meta-testimony-said-very-little-but-the-fact-hes-here-at-all-is-a-major-moment\">harmed her childhood<\/a> by addicting her and keeping her on platforms like Instagram for up to 16 hours a day, won $3 million in damages. A jury found Meta (the parent company of Instagram) and Alphabet (the parent company of Google and YouTube) liable, assigning 70% of the damages to Meta and 30% to Alphabet. TikTok and Snapchat, also named as defendants, settled before trial without admitting fault.<\/p>\n<p>The amount\u2014roughly <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/investor.atmeta.com\/investor-news\/press-release-details\/2026\/Meta-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2025-Results\/default.aspx#:~:text=The%20live%20webcast%20of%20the%20call%20can,will%20be%20available%20at%20the%20same%20website.\">0.0015% of Meta\u2019s 2025 revenue<\/a>, and even less for Alphabet\u2014is negligible for the companies, though punitive damages have yet to be decided. The precedent, however, may not be, as the case calls into question whether Section 230\u2014the federal law that protects tech companies from liability by treating them as platforms rather than publishers\u2014will indeed continue to act as an effective shield.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"content-chunk\">\n<p>In a move that more or less skirted Section 230, the jury found that Meta\u2019s design and operation of Instagram was negligent, and that this negligence was a \u201csubstantial factor\u201d in the harm Kaley suffered. It also found the company negligent for failing to warn users about the potential risks of its products.<\/p>\n<p>A Meta spokesperson said the company disagrees with the verdict and plans to appeal, adding that its lawyers are \u201cevaluating our legal options.\u201d A Google spokesperson echoed that position: \u201cWe disagree with the verdict and plan to appeal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Both companies have strong incentives to challenge the ruling, as the decision \u201cis going to open up some floodgates\u201d and \u201cdefinitely makes it more likely there will be more lawsuits,\u201d says Duke University public policy professor Robyn Caplan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/91516105\/meta-google-los-angeles-social-media-trial-verdict\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bellwether trials are complicated but consequential. Pulled from a morass of claims, they\u2019re designed to test how a jury responds to a broader legal theory. Often, they fall flat. Today in a California court, one did not. Kaley, a 20-year-old who alleged that social media harmed her childhood by addicting her and keeping her on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9439","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brand-spotlights"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}