Meta and Google lost a major social media addiction lawsuit. Their troubles are far from over.

This week’s verdict in the landmark social media addiction trial against Meta (META) and Google (GOOG, GOOGL) could have major implications for how the companies, and their rivals, operate their businesses.
But the road between the Los Angeles jury finding Meta and Google negligent and the companies being forced to overhaul their respective platforms is a long one that may never materialize.
Jurors in the trial said Meta and YouTube knew the designs of their platforms were dangerous, that users wouldn't realize the danger, and that the companies failed to warn of the danger when a reasonable platform would have.
They also awarded the plaintiffs, a now-20-year-old woman known in legal filings as K.G.M. and her mother, Karen, $6 million in compensatory and punitive damages. Both Google parent Alphabet and Meta say they plan to appeal.
The suit is seen as a potential watershed moment as parents, school districts, and states line up thousands of similar lawsuits against the two companies. But experts say the appeals process will take months and raise questions related to free speech protections that could send the case all the way to the Supreme Court.
A win for the plaintiffs there could be disastrous for Meta and Alphabet, while raising serious questions about free speech on the web. But if the companies prevail, it could close the door on the way the plaintiffs’ attorneys approached their lawsuit.
The path ahead and free speech concerns
The social media addiction lawsuit is important because it’s seen as a bellwether for future cases against Meta, Google, and counterparts like TikTok and Snap (SNAP).
The case, known as JCCP 5255, alleged that K.G.M.’s social media use, which began when she was 10, led to “dangerous dependency on [the social media companies’ products], anxiety, depression, self-harm, and body dysmorphia.”
Critics have traditionally argued against the content social platforms host, saying that it is dangerous and damaging to younger users. But Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shields internet companies from being held liable for hosting user content and for making “good faith” efforts to moderate content they find “objectionable.”
The law has drawn the ire of both Republicans and Democrats in the past, with Republicans arguing that it allows companies to censor right-wing voices and Democrats saying it aids the spread of disinformation.
Courts have largely sided with social media and internet companies on Section 230 in the past. But the plaintiffs’ attorneys in the Los Angeles trial framed their arguments around the design of the social platforms, including features like infinite scroll, “likes,” and notifications, resulting in Wednesday’s verdict.
Harvard Law School lecturer Timothy Edgar told Yahoo Finance that he expects the social media companies to mount a First Amendment challenge to the verdict on the grounds that their algorithms and their design choices are a form of speech.
Allowing the verdict to stand as is, and holding companies liable for those kinds of design decisions, he explained, could have a chilling effect on the internet as a whole.
“Of course, we're all happy to see that maybe tech companies are going to be incentivized to be more responsible. But what does that really mean in practice? Does that mean that they design their services so that people don't talk about controversial topics so that they're much more controlled?” Edgar said.
“I worry that we may look back on the time of the early 21st century as a time when we had a lot more freedom online than what we might have in the next five or 10 years,” he added.
Columbia Law School professor Eric Talley says whether Section 230 applies to the lawsuit could end up sending the case to the Supreme Court.
“This is kind of an interesting new twist on a plaintiff's side theory … a deliberate attempt to try to sidestep the prohibition [regarding content] that Section 230 lays out,” Talley said.
“And so there's a chance that under federal law, this would be considered to be an impermissible attempt to sidestep [Section 230]. And if that is true, then that would basically dispose of … the California … and any other state claims that are based on this theory,” he added.
If Meta and Google were to lose before the Supreme Court, and the designs of their platforms aren’t protected under Section 230, Talley says we could see members of Congress expand the law to do so.
If not, Meta and Google could change the design of their platforms to address the issues raised in the Los Angeles suit.
Social media companies are facing pressure globally as regulators look for ways to address concerns around teen use and mental health.
Australia has already imposed a ban on teens under 16 using social media services and, according to Reuters, others have followed suit. Brazil, for instance, now bans features like infinite scroll. Other countries also ban teen use or are crafting legislation to do so.
Advocates against such bans say they limit teens’ access to information on the web and keep them from connecting with supportive communities and groups that could benefit their mental health.
Bans also introduce thorny questions about online privacy, including whether users misidentified as teens have to use government-issued IDs to verify their actual ages.
Decisions about these topics and more will become vitally important to the online world as the appeals process in the Los Angeles trial begins and other cases take shape. And it’s all far from clear.
Email Daniel Howley at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley.