Jury verdicts are meant to speak the truth, and today’s verdict in a California courtroom spoke the truth about the pernicious effects of platforms such as Instagram and YouTube on young people in the United States and around the world. The jury found two social media giants, Meta and YouTube, responsible for injuries incurred by a 20-year-old woman over the course of her childhood.

The plaintiff, referred to in court as KGM, claimed that her social media use had begun when she was six years old. Her suit alleged that the sites she regularly used had features designed to hold her attention and keep her coming back.

It detailed injuries, including body dysmorphia and thoughts of self-harm, that it attributed to those features.

Judgements of responsibility in cases like the one brought against Meta and YouTube are necessarily complex. And critics of the judgment in this case will no doubt howl about greedy plaintiffs looking to make a haul from deep-pocketed defendants and runaway juries who let sympathy guide them.

However, it seems clear that companies knew of the addictive qualities of their sites and the potential damage to young people. They apparently chose to ignore what was evident to them and people like KGM have paid the price.

The Los Angeles jury did not ignore the evidence of such negligence. Good for them.

And this may be just one moment in a sea of legal trouble that awaits Meta and YouTube in the wake of the verdict. As the New York Times reports: “Eight other cases brought by individual plaintiffs are slated to go to trial there. A set of federal cases........

© The Guardian