In March, a United States jury found Meta and Google negligent in thedesign of their platforms in a landmark ‘social media addictions’ trial.
Social media giant Meta has asked a United States judge to throw out a verdict that found the company liable for a woman’s depression and addiction, according to court filings and media reports.
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In March, a jury found that Meta and Google, the parent company of YouTube, had been negligent in how they designed their platforms and failed to warn their users of the dangers of using them. The jury decided the companies owed the 20-year-old plaintiff identified as KGM, $6 million (€5.1 million).
KGM testified that she spent up to 16 hours a day on social media platforms and that this exacerbated mental health struggles.
Meta asked the judge to overturn the verdict and either rule in its favour or order a new trial, according to legal documents obtained by Euronews Next.
The company argues that it is shielded from the allegations in this lawsuit because of Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act, which protects online platforms from liability over the harms from user-generated content on their platforms, according to reports.
The evidence presented at the trial tried to link KGM’s mental health challenges to the content she viewed instead of design features on the app, such as infinite scroll and autoplay.
The case is considered a “bellwether” trial, meaning it could decide how thousands of other lawsuits in the United States are determined.
Meta said in a statement to Euronews Next that the features debated in the lawsuit such as algorithms, infinite scroll, notifications and likes exists to deliver third party content and should be exempted under Section 230.
Even if a court does not extend Section 230 protections to Meta, the company argues there is legal precedent for them to be covered under the US Constitution's First Amendment.
This case punishes Meta, it said, for its decisions about what content to display, how to organise it and in what order despite other cases that protected other companies for doing the same.
The company also pointed to one of the plaintiff's experts, who said during the trial that it would be "impossible" for anyone to determine whether the plaintiff would have suffered the same issues whether they had joined Instagram or not.
During the trial, Meta argued that KGM's mental health struggles were due to a turbulent life at home, not their social media use.
YouTube's arguments focused more on the nature of the platform, which is equivalent to television rather than a social media platform. Lawyers for YouTube also noted that KGM's YouTube use went down as she aged.
Lawyers representing both platforms also pointed to their safety features and guardrails for users to monitor and customise their use.
