The world’s largest social media companies, including American online video sharing platform owned by Google, and Meta’s Instagram, have been accused of creating “addiction machines” causing inordinate addictions by some users. The report came as a landmark trial began in California examining the mental health effects of Instagram and YouTube on users.
In his opening argument before Los Angeles Superior Court judge, Carolyn B. Kuhl, a jury, Mark Lanier, argued that his client, plaintiff “K.G.M,” suffered from mental health issues as a result of her social media addiction. “These companies built machines designed to addict the brains of children, and they did it on purpose,” Lanier urgued. Lawyers for Meta and YouTube told the jury that K.G.M’s addiction stemmed from other issues in her life rather than negligence.
K.G.M will be referred to by her initials, or as Kaley G.M, because the alleged harms took place when she was a minor. Lanier also charged that Meta and YouTube failed to warn of the dangers to young users posed by the design of their platforms. Lanier underscored his opening remarks by speaking with a display of children’s blocks in front of him: the words “Addicting,” “Brains” and “Children” appeared next to the letters A, B, and C. “This case is about two of the richest corporations in history who have engineered addiction in children’s brains.
“I’m going to show you the addiction machine that they built, the internal documents that people normally don’t get to see, and emails from [Meta CEO] Mark Zuckerberg and YouTube executives,” Lanier said. According to Reuters, in a selected portion of a 2015 email Lanier showed the court, Zuckerberg demanded that “time spent increases by 12 percent” on Meta platforms in order to meet internal business goals.
As for YouTube, Lanier said the platform intentionally targeted young users because it could “charge advertisers more,” as compared to its YouTube Kids platform. Lanier then accused YouTube of trying to take advantage of busy parents looking for a “digital babysitting service.”
When it was Meta’s turn to make an opening statement, attorney Paul Schmidt pointed the jury to the question of whether Instagram was a substantial factor in K.G.M’s mental health struggles. He portrayed K.G.M as someone dealing with family turmoil, including neglect, physical and verbal abuse, and bullying by her parents.
