LOS ANGELES (AP) — Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is scheduled to face a jury Wednesday in a groundbreaking legal battle examining whether Meta’s social media platforms intentionally create addiction and cause harm to young users.
The Meta chief executive will field challenging questions from lawyers representing a woman, now 20 and identified as KGM, who alleges that using social media as a child created an addiction to the technology and worsened her depression and thoughts of suicide. Meta Platforms and Google’s YouTube remain as defendants in this lawsuit, after TikTok and Snap reached settlements.
While Zuckerberg has previously given testimony in other court cases and faced congressional questioning about protecting youth on Meta’s services — where he issued apologies to families who blamed social media for devastating tragedies — this trial represents his first appearance before a jury on these issues. Grieving parents are anticipated to occupy the limited public seating in the courtroom.
This lawsuit, alongside two others, serves as a bellwether case, which means the verdict could determine how thousands of comparable legal actions against social media corporations will proceed.
A spokesperson for Meta stated the company firmly rejects the lawsuit’s claims and expressed confidence that evidence will demonstrate their “longstanding commitment to supporting young people.”
During opening arguments, Meta lawyer Paul Schmidt acknowledged that KGM faced mental health challenges but disputed that Instagram significantly contributed to those problems. He referenced medical documentation showing a troubled family situation, and both he and a YouTube attorney contended she used their platforms to cope with or escape her psychological difficulties.
Zuckerberg’s court appearance follows testimony from Adam Mosseri, Instagram’s leader, who appeared in court last week and rejected the notion that users can develop clinical addictions to social media services. Mosseri emphasized Instagram’s efforts to safeguard young users and stated it’s “not good for the company, over the long run, to make decisions that profit for us but are poor for people’s well-being.”
Plaintiff attorney Mark Lanier focused much of his questioning of Mosseri on Instagram’s appearance-altering cosmetic filters — an issue he’s likely to address again with Zuckerberg. The Meta CEO will probably also face inquiries about Instagram’s recommendation system, the endless nature of Meta’s content feeds, and other elements that plaintiffs claim are engineered to create user dependency.
Additionally, Meta is confronting a separate legal proceeding in New Mexico that commenced last week.
