Mark Zuckerberg to testify at landmark social media trial : NPR

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg will testify Wednesday in a major lawsuit against social media companies that claim their products are defective and harmful to children.

Nic Coury/Associated Press

hide caption

toggle caption

Nic Coury/Associated Press

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is expected to be questioned Wednesday by lawyers who say social media services like Instagram were intentionally designed as “digital casinos” to attract young people, fueling a teen mental health crisis.

Zuckerberg’s appearance before a Los Angeles jury is the most anticipated of the trial. Like the rest of the proceedings, Zuckerberg’s testimony will not be available live.

At the heart of the lawsuit is a question that could have far-reaching consequences for Silicon Valley: Are social media platforms “defective products” designed to exploit the vulnerabilities of young people’s brains?

Lawyers for the tech companies have countered that a child suffering mental health issues after using a platform does not mean social media is to blame for the child’s problems. Instead, they argue that the industry has become the scapegoat for the complex emotional issues children face and which can have many root causes.

Still, attorneys for the suing parents point to internal company documents emphasizing the goal of making social media apps difficult to remove through features like infinite scrolling, autoplay, likes, beauty filters and push notifications. “These companies built machines designed to addict children’s brains,” attorney Mark Lanier said at the trial’s opening. “And they did it on purpose.”

The woman at the center of the case, a 20-year-old California woman known only as KGM, or Kaley, in legal documents, says she began using YouTube compulsively at age 6 and later, around age 9, began scrolling on Instagram. Kaley said her use of the platforms worsened her depression and suicidal thoughts. Jurors are expected to hear her at length when she takes the witness stand later in the trial.

The stakes are high for tech companies because it is a test case, likely to influence the outcome of some 1,600 other ongoing social media addiction cases that have been consolidated by children’s parents and school districts.

Meanwhile, in New Mexico, Meta faces a separate, now-pending consumer protection lawsuit filed by the state’s attorney general, which accuses the tech giant of failing to prevent the sexual exploitation of children on its platforms. It is unclear whether Zuckerberg will take the witness stand in this case.

In the Los Angeles trial, which is being held in state court, the jury needs the agreement of three-quarters, or 9 of 12 jurors, to side with KGM or the technology companies. A victory for the family could result in serious monetary damages and platform-wide changes to social media apps. The outcome of this lawsuit is expected to open the door to settlement negotiations for hundreds of other lawsuits.

For decades, Silicon Valley has maintained a nearly impenetrable legal perimeter in the form of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a 1996 law that allows tech companies to avoid legal liability for what their users post. But in recent years, plaintiffs’ attorneys have used a new legal tactic to circumvent Section 230 by filing lawsuits against social media companies under product liability laws, much like a manufacturer sued over a defective product.

In its original lawsuit, KGM sued Meta, Google, TikTok and Snap, accusing the companies of borrowing techniques used by Big Tobacco in decades past to target young people to get them addicted, while ignoring internal research that their products could harm teens.

TikTok and Snap settled before trial, leaving Meta and Google as the two remaining defendants.

For weeks, the courtroom has been filled with grieving parents holding framed photos of their children who died after suffering violence on social media.

Julianna Arnold, whose daughter died at age 17 after being lured by a predator she met on social media, was among those present at the trial in Los Angeles. She and other parents are hoping for a verdict against the tech companies.

“We’ve lost our children and there’s nothing we can do about it. But what we can do is let other parents and families know about this harm and that these platforms are dangerous and we need to put guardrails on these companies,” Arnold said. said NPR recently. “And they can’t do what they want when they want, how they want. And I want parents to know that these are not safe platforms for their children.”

Google is a financial sponsor of NPR.