Social Media and Youth Mental Health

A Los Angeles jury found Meta (Instagram) and Google’s YouTube negligent for designing addictive products that harmed a California woman identified as K.G.M. (“Kaley”), awarding $3 million in compensatory damages — split 70% to Meta ($2.1M) and 30% to Google ($900K) — and finding punitive damages warranted (some outlets reported a $6 million total); both companies say they will appeal. The first‑of‑its‑kind bellwether trial, which ran for about a month and saw jurors deliberate more than 40 hours (and not unanimously), focused on product design features like infinite feeds, autoplay and notifications rather than post content.