Social media corporations face authorized reckoning over psychological well being harms to kids – One America Information Community

[ad_1] By BARBARA ORTUTAYUpdated 1:56 AM PST, February 20, 2026

<img decoding="async" width="800" height="533" src="https://www.oann.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/zuck.webp" alt="Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg leaves after testifying in a landmark trial over whether social media platforms deliberately addict and harm children, Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)" class="wp-image-761800" srcset="https://www.oann.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/zuck.webp 800w, https://www.oann.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/zuck-400x267.webp 400w, https://www.oann.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/zuck-768x512.webp 768w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px"/> Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg leaves after testifying in a landmark trial over whether or not social media platforms intentionally addict and hurt kids, Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Picture/Damian Dovarganes)

For years, social media corporations have disputed allegations that they hurt kids’s psychological well being via deliberate design selections that addict youngsters to their platforms and fail to guard them from sexual predators and harmful content material. Now, these tech giants are getting an opportunity to make their case in courtrooms across the nation, together with earlier than a jury for the primary time.

A few of the largest gamers from Meta to TikTok are dealing with federal and state trials that search to carry them accountable for harming kids’s psychological well being. The lawsuits have come from college districts, native, state and the federal authorities in addition to hundreds of households.

Two trials at the moment are underway in Los Angeles and in New Mexico, with extra to return. The courtroom showdowns are the fruits of years of scrutiny of the platforms over youngster security, and whether or not deliberate design selections make them addictive and serve up content material that results in despair, consuming problems or suicide.

Specialists see the reckoning as paying homage to circumstances towards tobacco and opioid markets, and the plaintiffs hope that social media platforms will see comparable outcomes as cigarette makers and drug corporations, pharmacies and distributors.

The outcomes may problem the businesses’ First Modification defend and Part 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which protects tech corporations from legal responsibility for materials posted on their platforms. They is also pricey within the type of authorized charges and settlements. And so they may drive the businesses to alter how they function, doubtlessly shedding customers and promoting {dollars}.

Right here’s a have a look at the main social media harms circumstances in the USA.

The Los Angeles case facilities on addictionJurors in a landmark social media case that seeks to carry tech corporations accountable for harms to kids acquired their first glimpse into what shall be a prolonged trial characterised by dueling narratives from the plaintiffs and the 2 remaining defendants, Meta and YouTube.

On the core of the Los Angeles case is a 20-year-old recognized solely by the initials “KGM,” whose case may decide how hundreds of comparable lawsuits will play out. KGM and the circumstances of two different plaintiffs have been chosen to be bellwether trials — primarily check circumstances for either side to see how their arguments play out earlier than a jury.

“It is a monumental inflection level in social media,” stated Matthew Bergman of the Seattle-based Social Media Victims Regulation Middle, which represents greater than 1,000 plaintiffs in lawsuits towards social media corporations. “Once we began doing this 4 years in the past nobody stated we’d ever get to trial. And right here we try our case in entrance of a good and neutral jury.”

On Wednesday Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified, largely sticking to previous speaking factors, together with a prolonged back-and-forth about age verification the place he stated ““I don’t see why that is so sophisticated,” reiterating that the corporate’s coverage restricts customers underneath the age of 13 and that it really works to detect customers who've lied about their ages to bypass restrictions.

At one level, the plaintiff’s legal professional, Mark Lanier, requested Zuckerberg if individuals have a tendency to make use of one thing extra if it’s addictive.

“I’m undecided what to say to that,” Zuckerberg stated. “I don’t suppose that applies right here.”

New Mexico goes after Meta over sexual exploitationA crew led by New Mexico Lawyer Normal Raúl Torrez, who sued Meta in 2023, constructed their case by posing as kids on social media, then documenting sexual solicitations they acquired in addition to Meta’s response.

Torrez needs Meta to implement simpler age verification and do extra to take away dangerous actors from its platform.

He is also searching for adjustments to algorithms that may serve up dangerous materials, and has criticized the end-to-end encryption that may forestall the monitoring of communications with kids for security. Meta has famous that encrypted messaging is inspired usually as a privateness and safety measure by some state and federal authorities.

The trial kicked off in early February. In his opening assertion, prosecuting legal professional Donald Migliori stated Meta has misrepresented the security of its platforms, selecting to engineer its algorithms to maintain younger individuals on-line whereas realizing that kids are liable to sexual exploitation.

“Meta clearly knew that youth security was not its company precedence … that youth security was much less vital than progress and engagement,” Migliori informed the jury.

Meta legal professional Kevin Huff pushed again on these assertions in his opening assertion, highlighting an array of efforts by the corporate to weed out dangerous content material from its platforms whereas warning customers that some harmful content material nonetheless will get previous its security internet.

College districts head to trialA trial scheduled for this summer season pits college districts towards social media corporations earlier than U.S. District Choose Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California. Referred to as a multidistrict litigation, it names six public college districts from across the nation because the bellwethers.

Jayne Conroy, a lawyer on plaintiffs’ trial crew, was additionally an legal professional for plaintiffs searching for to carry pharmaceutical corporations accountable for the opioid epidemic. She stated the cornerstone of each circumstances is similar: habit.

“With the social media case, we’re centered totally on kids and their growing brains and the way habit is such a menace to their well-being and … the harms which are precipitated to kids — how a lot they’re watching and what sort of focusing on is being accomplished,” she stated.

The medical science, she added, “will not be actually all that totally different, surprisingly, from an opioid or a heroin habit. We're all speaking in regards to the dopamine response.”

Each the social media and the opioid circumstances declare negligence on the a part of the defendants.

“What we had been capable of show within the opioid circumstances is the producers, the distributors, the pharmacies, they knew in regards to the dangers, they downplayed them, they oversupplied, and folks died,” Conroy stated. “Right here, it is vitally a lot the identical factor. These corporations knew in regards to the dangers, they've disregarded the dangers, they doubled right down to get earnings from advertisers over the security of youngsters. And children had been harmed and youngsters died.”

Decision may take years amid dueling narrativesSocial media corporations have disputed that their merchandise are addictive. Throughout questioning Wednesday by the plaintiff’s lawyer throughout the Los Angeles trial, Zuckerberg stated he nonetheless agrees with a earlier assertion he made that the prevailing physique of scientific work has not confirmed that social media causes psychological well being harms.

Some researchers do certainly query whether or not habit is the suitable time period to explain heavy use of social media. Social media habit will not be acknowledged as an official dysfunction within the Diagnostic and Statistical Guide of Psychological Issues, the authority throughout the psychiatric neighborhood.

However the corporations face growing pushback on the problem of social media’s results on kids’s psychological well being, not solely amongst lecturers but in addition dad and mom, faculties and lawmakers.

“Whereas Meta has doubled down on this space to deal with mounting issues by rolling out security options, a number of latest experiences recommend that the corporate continues to aggressively prioritize teenagers as a consumer base and doesn’t all the time adhere to its personal guidelines,” stated Emarketer analyst Minda Smiley.

With appeals and any settlement discussions, the circumstances towards social media corporations may take years to resolve. And in contrast to in Europe and Australia, tech regulation within the U.S. is shifting at a glacial tempo.

“Dad and mom, training, and different stakeholders are more and more hoping lawmakers will do extra,” Smiley stated. “Whereas there's momentum on the state and federal degree, Large Tech lobbying, enforcement challenges, and lawmaker disagreements over tips on how to finest common social media have slowed significant progress.”

—

AP Know-how Author Kaitlyn Huamani contributed to this story.

BARBARA ORTUTAYOrtutay writes about social media and the web for The Related Press.

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Social media corporations face authorized reckoning over psychological well being harms to kids – One America Information Community

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