Big Tech — and especially Meta, the parent of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp — has weathered two major legal blows in just two days.
And it’s all an indictment of how fed up regular Americans are. They are angry at the social media companies they believe have robbed them, and their children, of their attention and mental health.
In Los Angeles Wednesday, a 20-year-old girl known as KGM, who said growing up online ruined her life, emerged victorious against Meta and Google — to the tune of $3 million in compensatory damages and an additional $3 million in punitive damages. And Meta is also on the hook for $375 million after a New Mexico jury ruled on Tuesday the company failed to protect kids on their platforms.
“It is a watershed moment in the quest for online accountability,” KGM’s lawyer Matthew Bergman told me. “It is the first time a jury has found that social media is defective as designed … causing real life harm.”
During the trial, the KGM case was said to be a “bellwether” — one that, if it succeeded, could set the landscape for more to follow.
That’s sure to be the case now.
“I think this absolutely could also open up the floodgates,” attorney and author Josh Hammer told me. “Big Tech is now firmly on guard, and they know they cannot continue to lure in vulnerable young Americans with their deliberately addictive algorithms.”
Eric Goldman, professor of law at Santa Clara University in California, pointed out that the New Mexico jury was limited to awarding $5,000 per victim — but “would have awarded more if it could.”
He told me that “other court cases won’t be subjected to such damages caps. If other court cases also result in liability, the potential total damages could be greater than the social media services are worth.”
It’s a staggering prospect.
In the KGM trial, the jury ruled that Meta and YouTube were both liable for negligent design and a failure to warn consumers about dangers.
KGM, who started using YouTube at 6 and joined Instagram at 9, complained of anxiety and depression due to her social media use. She alleges she was subjected to sexual extortion and pummeled with content about self-harm on Instagram.
“I wanted to be on it all the time,” she testified of the app. “If I wasn’t on it, I felt like I was going to miss out on something.” She also reported experiencing body dysmorphia and thoughts of self-harm.
She previously settled with TikTok and Snap, who were also listed as defendants in the suit, for undisclosed sums.
“The family is gratified. They’re exhausted by having to go through this process,” said Bergman, who is also the founder of Social Media Victims Law Center, where he represents 1,500 families. I bet more will be calling him after today.
I’ve recently interviewed several parents who believe they lost their children due to social media. Like Victoria Hinks, who slept outside the court where the KGM trial was held, and whose 16-year-old daughter, Owl, took her own life in 2024.
“When I look through her phone as her 1774481021, I see all the stuff that was being served up really just normalizing depression and glamorizing suicide,” Hinks said of her daughter’s social media accounts. “The ‘skeleton bride diet,’ and these creepy, very anorexic-looking girls, it affected her self-esteem for sure. She made herself throw up. She would ask me, ‘Are my eyes too far apart?’ And, like, where would she even get that?”
This is a massive win for the memory of children like Owl.
On Tuesday, a jury in New Mexico agreed with Attorney General Raul Torrez that Meta failed to protect children against predators online — which the AG’s office demonstrated by going undercover as a tween on social media, only to get bombarded by messages from creeps. Now the company is ordered to pay $375 million in damages.
Torrez predicted the victory in a previous interview with The Post: “I don’t think that the jury [will] be convinced at the end of the day that a company with as many resources as [Meta has] at their disposal has done nearly enough to stop that harm.”
Meta told The Post that they would appeal the decision in New Mexico, and that the jury in the KGM trial was not unanimous. The company said they “respectfully disagree with the verdict and are evaluating our legal options.”
Google spokesman José Castañeda told The Post that the company disagrees with the verdict and plans to appeal. “This case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site,” he added.
The decisions aren’t sitting easy with everyone.
On X, free speech advocate Nico Perino said “the verdict diminishes the responsibility parents have to raise healthy kids” and warned that the ruling could stifle free expression online — valid concerns
Fordham University Law Professor Olivier Sylvain told me he thinks these rulings will encourage platforms to be better.
“I have to assume that these cases will finally force companies to be far more alert and transparent about the downstream effects of their development and design decisions,” Sylvain said.
It’s hard to say yet if these ruling will bring Big Tech to their knees. But they will definitely give social media giants, who previously had every incentive to keep you glued to your devices at any cost, new financial incentive to treat their consumers like actual human beings.
