Social Media Giant in the Dock: Legal Shifts Behind the Child Mental Health Lawsuit

On February 18, in Courtroom 24 of the Los Angeles Superior Court, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg stood in the witness stand and underwent hours of questioning by plaintiff's attorney Mark Lanier. At the core of this case, referred to by some legal scholars as the social media tobacco lawsuit, is a 20-year-old California woman using the pseudonym Kelly (court file code KGM). She is suing platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Snap, alleging that their addictive designs led her to suffer from depression, eating disorders, and suicidal tendencies starting at the age of 9. This case is not an isolated incident. The New Mexico Attorney General's Office's lawsuit against Meta for child sexual exploitation is being heard concurrently, while the federal court in Oakland, California, will also hear a joint lawsuit filed by multiple school districts this summer. Currently, there are over 1,600 similar cases awaiting rulings across the United States, marking a phase of intensive judicial confrontation in product liability lawsuits against social media platforms.

Courtroom Confrontation: Addictive Design and Platform Accountability

Los Angeles court records show that the plaintiff built their accusation framework based on product defect theory. Attorney Lanier presented to the jury a 2015 internal Meta document, which estimated that 30% of children aged 10 to 12 in the United States were using Instagram. Another internal memo from 2018 stated: "If we want to win the teen market, we must attract them when they are still 'tweens.'" These documents contradict Meta's publicly stated policy of prohibiting registration for users under 13. During his testimony, Zuckerberg acknowledged that age verification is extremely difficult and that many users indeed misrepresent their age, but he stated that the company has been working to address this issue.

Technical details become the focal point of debate. The plaintiff's expert witness, Dr. Anna Lembke, Director of the Stanford Center for Addiction Medicine Research, explained in court that the platform's use of infinite scrolling, autoplay, push notifications, and variable reward mechanisms stimulates the brain's nucleus accumbens to release dopamine, with neural mechanisms similar to substance addiction. She cited a 2023 longitudinal study from JAMA Psychiatry: adolescents who use social media for more than 3 hours per day have a 48% higher risk of developing depressive symptoms compared to those who use it for less than 1 hour. Meta's attorney, Paul Schmidt, countered that such studies only show correlation rather than causation, and adolescent mental health is also influenced by multiple variables such as family environment, academic pressure, and genetic factors.

The lawsuit in New Mexico adopted a more direct investigative approach. The team led by the state's Attorney General Raúl Torrez created fake child accounts in 2023, documenting hundreds of sexually suggestive messages on Instagram and Facebook. Court filings reveal that an account posing as a 14-year-old girl received five explicit sexual invitations within 24 hours of registration, while Meta's reporting system took an average of 38 hours to respond. In his opening statement, Torrez pointed out: Meta's end-to-end encryption policy effectively provides cover for predators, and the company knowingly prioritized growth and user engagement over child safety despite being aware of the risks.

Cracks in the Legal Shield: From Clauses to Product Liability Law

The core legal challenge of this litigation wave lies in breaching the liability immunity shield established by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. This provision stipulates that providers or users of interactive computer services shall not be treated as publishers or speakers of information provided by other information content providers, which has long protected technology companies from legal liability for content posted by users. In May 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld this principle in Gonzalez v. Google but left an unresolved issue: the Court did not rule on whether algorithmic recommendations are protected under Section 230.

The plaintiff's legal team precisely targeted this loophole. Matthew Bergman, founder of the Seattle Social Media Victims Law Center, explained: Instead of suing over harmful content on the platforms, we are suing the platforms themselves for their design flaws. It's like suing an automaker for defective airbags, rather than suing the driver for causing an accident. They compare social media apps to defective products, arguing that principles of design defect and failure to warn under product liability law should apply. Bergman's team represents over 1,000 plaintiffs, including Tammy Rodriguez, a mother from Connecticut, whose 11-year-old daughter died by suicide in 2021 after experiencing cyberbullying on Instagram.

This shift in legal strategy stems from a series of exploratory lawsuits conducted earlier. In 2022, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, in a ruling, first recognized the argument that social media addiction could constitute a product defect, paving the way for subsequent cases. The upcoming joint lawsuit by school districts, set to go to trial this summer, shifts the focus to economic damages: plaintiffs from six public school districts in states such as New York, Washington, and Florida claim that, in response to the student mental health crisis, the districts need to invest millions of dollars annually in psychological counseling, cybersecurity education, and training for supervisory personnel.

Industry Response and Regulatory Stalemate

Facing litigation pressure, social media platforms have adopted two distinct approaches in their responses. Between 2023 and 2025, Meta launched over ten safety features, including Family Center, Quiet Mode, and usage time reminders, and pledged $2 billion for youth safety programs. During testimony in a Los Angeles court, Instagram head Adam Mosseri stated that the platform now sets accounts for users under 16 to private by default and restricts advertisers from targeting based on age. However, eMarketer analyst Minda Smiley pointed out that multiple independent audit reports indicate Meta still operates with teenagers as a core user group, revealing a gap between its internal safety policies and actual implementation.

Meanwhile, lobbying efforts in the technology industry have also intensified. According to data from the nonpartisan research organization OpenSecrets, four companies—Meta, Google, ByteDance, and Snap—collectively spent over $75 million on federal lobbying in 2025, with key lobbying targets including the Senate Commerce Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Currently, five major bills pending in Congress, such as the "Children's Online Safety Act" and the "Protecting Kids Online Safety Act," have stalled due to disagreements between the two parties over provisions related to age verification technology standards, parental monitoring authority, and algorithmic transparency.

This legislative stagnation contrasts with regulatory progress outside the United States. The European Union's Digital Services Act came into full effect in February 2024, requiring large platforms to conduct systematic risk assessments, prohibiting targeted advertising aimed at children, and setting default privacy protections. Australia's eSafety Commissioner was granted new powers in January 2025, allowing it to impose fines of up to 10% of annual turnover on platforms that fail to promptly remove harmful content. In the United States, regulation primarily relies on fragmented state-level legislation: Utah and Arkansas passed laws in 2024 requiring social media companies to conduct age verification for users under 18, but these laws are facing constitutional challenges due to privacy concerns.

Long-term Impact: Industrial Models and Regulatory Paradigms

Regardless of the verdicts from the juries in Los Angeles and New Mexico, these lawsuits have triggered deeper industry reflection. Frances Haugen, former Facebook data scientist and current researcher at the MIT Center for Civic Media, stated during a congressional hearing in January 2026: "The core of the problem is the fundamental conflict between the attention economy model and the healthy development of children. As long as platform revenue remains directly tied to user screen time, safety measures will only ever be patches."

Some platforms have begun exploring alternative models. Pinterest announced in its Q3 2025 earnings report that it will test a subscription-based, ad-free teen mode. The emerging social app Generation Z adopted an interest-based community design, removing public display of like counts and follower numbers. However, the scale of these attempts remains small and is not yet able to shake the business models of mainstream platforms.

From a broader perspective, this legal battle may redefine the boundaries of responsibility for technology companies. Ali Wald, a professor of internet policy at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, predicts: If the plaintiffs prevail in key cases, we might see an outcome similar to the 1998 Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement—technology companies could be forced to establish massive compensation funds and accept independent oversight committees reviewing their product designs. In 1998, the four major U.S. tobacco companies, after a joint lawsuit across 46 states, agreed to pay $206 billion over 25 years and cease advertising targeted at youth.

For Juliana Arnold, standing outside the Los Angeles courthouse, these macro-level changes have come too late. Her daughter died from a fentanyl overdose in 2023 after contacting a drug dealer through Instagram. Zuckerberg apologized in Congress, but an apology won’t bring my daughter back. Looking at the courthouse, she said, what we need is not just feature adjustments—we need these companies to truly put lives above profits. As the jury is about to begin deliberations, the concerns that began in family living rooms and school classrooms are now seeking an answer in court—one that could reshape the internet era.