For years, parents have been told their concerns about social media were overblown, that the platforms were neutral tools, that restricting a child's access was the eccentric choice. A jury in Los Angeles has now said otherwise.
On the 25th of March 2026, in the first case of its kind, a jury voted 10-2 to find Meta and Google legally liable for the depression and anxiety suffered by a young woman known as Kaley, who began using YouTube at six and Instagram at eleven. The $6 million verdict, $4.2 million from Meta and $1.8 million from Google, could set a precedent for thousands of similar cases already in the works.
What the jury decided
The legal argument that succeeded was not about harmful content. It was about architecture. Infinite scroll, autoplay, and constant notifications were presented as deliberate mechanisms of addiction, and the jury agreed, finding both platforms defective not because of what users posted, but because of how they were built to keep them there.
The internal evidence was striking. One Meta memo described the need to bring children in "as tweens". Another showed eleven-year-olds were four times more likely to return to Instagram than competing apps, despite the platform's minimum age of thirteen. In internal messages, employees described Instagram as a drug and themselves as "pushers."
When challenged, Meta's defence blamed the plaintiff's family circumstances rather than its own design choices. The jury was unconvinced. One juror said afterwards that Zuckerberg's testimony "didn't sit well with us." Another was more direct, saying "we wanted them to feel it."
What this means for your family
This verdict doesn't change what's on your child's device. But it does confirm something many parents have long sensed. The tension between these platforms and your child's well-being is not accidental. It is a feature of the design.
Understanding which apps and platforms your child engages with, and how those products are built to influence their behaviour, is an increasingly important part of keeping them safe. If this concerns you, we'd be glad to help. Get in touch.