LOS ANGELES: Meta Platforms CEO and billionaire Fb founder Mark Zuckerberg is about to be questioned for the primary time in a US courtroom on Wednesday (Feb 18) about Instagram’s impact on the psychological well being of younger customers, as a landmark trial over youth social media addiction continues.
Whereas Zuckerberg has beforehand testified on the topic earlier than Congress, the stakes are larger on the jury trial in Los Angeles, California. Meta might should pay damages if it loses the case, and the decision might erode Huge Tech’s longstanding authorized defence in opposition to claims of person hurt.
The lawsuit and others prefer it are a part of a world backlash in opposition to social media platforms over youngsters’s psychological well being.
Australia has prohibited access to social media platforms for customers beneath age 16, and different nations together with Spain are contemplating related curbs. Within the US, Florida has prohibited corporations from permitting customers beneath age 14. Tech trade commerce teams are difficult the regulation in courtroom.
The case entails a California lady who began utilizing Meta’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube as a toddler. She alleges the businesses sought to revenue by hooking youngsters on their companies regardless of figuring out social media might hurt their psychological well being. She alleges the apps fuelled her melancholy and suicidal ideas and is looking for to carry the businesses liable.
Meta and Google have denied the allegations, and pointed to their work so as to add options that hold customers secure. Meta has usually pointed to a Nationwide Academies of Sciences discovering that analysis doesn’t present social media modifications youngsters’ psychological well being.
The lawsuit serves as a check case for related claims in a bigger group of instances in opposition to Meta, Alphabet’s Google, Snap and TikTok. Households, faculty districts and states have filed hundreds of lawsuits within the US accusing the businesses of fuelling a youth psychological well being disaster.
