Lawyers in landmark social media addiction trial make final appeals to the jury

LOS ANGELES (AP) — After about a month of hearing from addiction experts, therapists, platform engineers and executives, including Mark Zuckerberg, a jury will listen to closing arguments before heading to the deliberation room to decide whether social media companies should be liable for harms caused to children using their platforms.

Closing statements in the trial will begin Thursday at the Spring Street Courthouse in Los Angeles. Lawyers representing the plaintiff, a 20-year-old woman, and those representing the two defendants, Meta and Google-owned YouTube, will make their respective cases to the jurors. TikTok and Snap were also named defendants in the lawsuit, but they each settled before the trial began.

The case, along with two others, has been selected as a bellwether trial, meaning its outcome could impact how thousands of similar lawsuits against social media companies are likely to play out.

The plaintiff, identified as KGM in documents or Kaley, as her lawyers have called her during the trial, says her early use of social media addicted her to the technology and exacerbated depression and suicidal thoughts.

Both the defendants and the plaintiff have pointed to a turbulent home life for Kaley. Her attorneys say she was preyed upon as a vulnerable user, but attorneys representing Meta and Google-owned YouTube have argued Kaley turned to their platforms as a coping mechanism or a means of escaping her mental health struggles.

Throughout the trial, Meta argued that Kaley faced significant challenges before she ever used social media. The company’s lawyer, Paul Schmidt, said earlier this month that the core question in the case is whether the platforms were a substantial factor in Kayley’s mental health struggles.

Instead of focusing on Kaley, the attorneys representing YouTube argue that it is not a social media platform and that its features are not addictive.