Social Media Giant Faces Trial in California: Legal Battle Over Algorithm Addiction Allegations and Child Protection

On February 9, 2026, in Courtroom 61 of the Los Angeles County Superior Court, plaintiff's attorney Mark Lanier placed a set of alphabet-printed children's building blocks before the jury. He told the nine jurors that this lawsuit against Meta and Google's YouTube was as simple as ABC—A for Addiction, B for Brain, C for Children. Regarded as a bellwether trial in the legal community, the core allegation is that the two tech giants intentionally trapped minors in algorithmically constructed digital cages by designing and fostering addiction. Meanwhile, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, another independent trial against Meta simultaneously commenced, focusing on whether the platform has become a breeding ground for child sexual exploitation.

Judicial encirclement on two fronts.

The case in the Los Angeles court revolves around a 20-year-old California woman using the pseudonym Kelly G.M. Court documents reveal that she began using YouTube at the age of 6, registered an Instagram account at 11, and subsequently engaged with Snapchat and TikTok. The complaint filed by her legal team states that prolonged use of these platforms led her into a vicious cycle of depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and suicidal tendencies. The uniqueness of the case lies in the fact that the plaintiff does not directly challenge harmful content on the platforms—which is typically protected under Section 230 of the U.S. Communications Decency Act—but instead alleges fundamental flaws in the platforms' core design.

They are not building applications, but traps. In the opening statement, Lanier presented multiple internal documents from Meta and Google. One internal Google presentation explicitly listed user addiction as a goal; another email, allegedly from Mark Zuckerberg, demanded the team reverse the decline in engagement among young users on Instagram. The plaintiff's strategy is clear: drawing on the successful experience of confronting the tobacco industry in the 1990s, they aim to prove that companies knowingly concealed the harm of their products for profit.

The case in New Mexico adopted more direct investigative methods. Investigators from the office of State Attorney General Raúl Torrez created accounts disguised as minors, recording the sexually suggestive messages received and Meta's responses. The indictment alleges that Meta's algorithms and account features encourage compulsive use by minors while creating a breeding ground for predators. This case is the first among lawsuits filed by more than 40 state attorneys general against Meta to proceed to trial.

The direct clash between the legal shield and the business model.

The core defense of technology companies has always been Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. This provision typically exempts internet platforms from liability for content posted by users. However, the plaintiffs in this case have put forward a novel legal argument: the liability lies not in the user-generated content, but in the addictive architecture designed by the platform to maximize user engagement, thereby increasing advertising revenue.

Clay Calvert, Senior Research Fellow for Technology Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, pointed out that the outcome of this bellwether case will set a precedent for hundreds of similar lawsuits across the United States. The case selected three plaintiffs for a bellwether trial, with Kelly G.M. being the first. The result of her case will directly influence the legal direction of thousands of subsequent claims.

Meta and Google's response strategy is to categorically deny and actively defend. A Meta spokesperson expressed strong opposition to these allegations, believing that evidence will show the company's long-term commitment to supporting young people. The company listed several recent protective measures launched for teenagers, including stricter default settings, content restrictions, and tools providing more information about chat partners. Google spokesperson José Castañeda called the allegations completely untrue, emphasizing that providing a safer and healthier experience for young people has always been at the core of their work.

Notably, among the four original defendants in this case, TikTok and Snapchat reached a confidential settlement before jury selection began. This move has been interpreted by observers as a strategy to avoid the risks of a public trial. TikTok's settlement occurred just hours before the scheduled start of jury selection, with the specific amount undisclosed.

From Silicon Valley to the Witness Stand in Court

The witness list for the Los Angeles trial reads like a who's who of the tech industry's power players. According to the court schedule, Instagram head Adam Mosseri is expected to testify as early as February 11. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been summoned to take the witness stand on February 18. This will be one of the rare occasions in recent years that Zuckerberg directly faces questioning from a jury.

The plaintiff's legal team is led by Mark Lanier, who has secured billions of dollars in damages in class-action lawsuits against pharmaceutical giants and asbestos companies. His strategy is to simplify complex technical issues into concepts that jurors can intuitively understand. That set of ABC building blocks is a classic example. He also plans to demonstrate to the jury how the platform utilizes design patterns such as infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications, and variable rewards—patterns that in behavioral psychology are highly similar to the mechanisms by which slot machines trigger dopamine release.

The team of Matthew Bergman, founder of the Social Media Victims Law Center, has been involved in over 1,000 similar cases across the United States. He told AFP: This is the first time social media companies have faced a jury for harming children. The center is a nonprofit organization dedicated to holding social media companies legally accountable on behalf of adolescents.

The Prelude to a Global Regulatory Storm

The trials in Los Angeles and New Mexico are not isolated incidents. In the federal court of Oakland, Northern California, a larger multi-district litigation is underway, involving hundreds of school districts and families. These lawsuits allege that the design of social media platforms has led to campus violence, attention deficits, and declines in academic performance.

From a broader perspective, this trial marks a turning point in the global regulatory attitude toward technology platforms. The EU's Digital Services Act has mandated large platforms to conduct risk assessments and mitigate systemic risks. The UK's Online Safety Act requires platforms to protect children from harmful content. Although federal legislation in the United States has stalled, various states have successively introduced similar laws, such as California's Age-Appropriate Design Code Act.

Analysts point out that regardless of the final verdict from the jury, the trial itself has already changed the rules of the game. For the first time, tech company executives are required to explain to a jury composed of ordinary citizens the connections between algorithmic recommendations, engagement metrics, and growth objectives. Internal emails, product roadmaps, and A/B test results—commonplace items in Silicon Valley conference rooms—have now become evidence presented in court.

The deeper reason is that this lawsuit touches upon the core contradiction of the digital age: when did the tools connecting the world become instruments for controlling the mind? When engagement becomes the sole metric for measuring success, who should bear the social responsibility of protecting vulnerable brains? What the court needs to adjudicate is not just compensation for individual cases, but the ethical boundaries of digital products.

Unreconcilable generational conflict

The growth trajectory of the plaintiff, Kelly G.M., aligns perfectly with the rise of social media. She was born in 2006, just two years after Facebook opened to the public. When she started watching YouTube at age six, the platform was already surpassing 4 billion daily views. The year she registered her Instagram account at age eleven, the platform reached 500 million monthly active users. Her lawyers wrote in the complaint: The plaintiffs are not merely collateral damage of the defendants' products. They are the direct victims of intentional product design choices made by each defendant.

This trial is essentially a long-overdue conversation: In the pursuit of unlimited growth in the digital economy, has children's brain development become an acceptable cost? Are the parental control tools and screen time reminders proposed by tech companies sufficient, or are they merely superficial measures to alleviate public anxiety, akin to adding filters to cigarettes?

As Zuckerberg and Mosseri are about to take the witness stand, the world awaits answers. The jury's verdict will not end this debate, but it will set the tone for tech regulation in the next decade. When Judge Carolyn Kuhl finally strikes the gavel, the words in the judgment will not only concern the liability of the two companies but also define the role we are willing to let algorithms play in the lives of the next generation. This drama unfolding in the Los Angeles courtroom is ultimately a battle for sovereignty over human attention—and the power in the jury's hands may be stronger than any algorithm.