Los Angeles.- A jury in Los Angeles (California) is hearing from this Monday the accusations against the big tech companies Meta and Google in the case of a woman who accuses Instagram and YouTube of having harmed her mental health due to the addictive design of these applications.
The woman, 20 years old, identified in the civil lawsuit as K.G.M., filed the lawsuit against Meta, the parent company of Instagram, and Google, of Alphabet, owner of YouTube, after starting to use them when she was under 10 years old.
According to court documents, the woman claims she became addicted to social media during her childhood and, as a result, suffered from depression, self-esteem issues, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts.
The legal complaint targets the design of the platforms that aim to capture users’ attention by creating a dependency.
In jury selection, Mark Lanier, KGM’s lawyer, assured that he could provide evidence showing that Instagram and YouTube created certain design features… to keep young users like his client “hooked as long as possible”, according to information cited by CNN.
“She became obsessed with these platforms; her mental health deteriorated. Her childhood, and therefore her adulthood, deviated from normal development,” the lawyer emphasized.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is expected to be among the tech executives to testify in the trial, the first in a series of lawsuits hoping to hold big social media companies accountable.
The trial takes place in the Los Angeles County Superior Court and marks the first time the companies will present their case before the American justice system.
The outcome of KGM’s lawsuit could set a precedent for the resolution of around 1,500 similar lawsuits against social media companies.
The trial is scheduled to last at least six weeks.
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The young woman also sued Snapchat and TikTok. But both companies reached an out-of-court settlement before the trial last month.
This Monday also starts in New Mexico against Meta related to the dangers of child sexual exploitation on social media.
