Google and Meta denied new trial in youth social media addiction case

By Jody Godoy

Wed, June 10, 2026 astatine 11:33 AM CDT 1 min read

By Jody Godoy

June 10 (Reuters) - A California authorities tribunal justice has denied motions by Meta Platforms and Google's YouTube seeking ‌a caller proceedings aft a assemblage recovered the companies liable for ‌designing societal media platforms that are harmful to young people.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge ​Carolyn Kuhl ruled connected the motions connected Tuesday, according to tribunal documents. The companies had sought a caller proceedings successful a suit filed by a pistillate who said she became addicted to Google's YouTube and Meta's Instagram ‌at a young property ⁠because of their attention-grabbing design. A assemblage recovered the companies negligent and imposed $6 cardinal successful damages.

Kuhl rejected the ⁠companies' statement that they are shielded from the claims by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a national instrumentality that mostly protects online platforms ​from liability ​over user-generated content. Kuhl said the instrumentality ​does not code the companies' ‌design choices and the assemblage was repeatedly instructed not to see content.

"There was important grounds that Plaintiff was harmed by the plan features of Instagram, careless of immoderate of the contented recovered connected that platform," Kuhl wrote.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Meta said the institution disagreed with ‌the ruling.

"The plaintiffs’ ineligible mentation attempts to ​improperly circumvent Section 230 and the First ​Amendment, and we expect ​this ruling to beryllium overturned connected appeal," the spokesperson ‌said.

José Castañeda, a spokesperson for Google, ​said successful a connection ​that the institution plans to appeal.

Mark Lanier, an lawyer for the plaintiff, said nary 1 was amazed by the ruling.

"The grounds ​of responsibility was upland ‌high," Lanier said.

(Reporting by Jody Godoy successful New York; Additional ​reporting by Diana Novak Jones successful Chicago; Editing by Chris ​Sanders, David Gregorio and Mark Porter)