Verdicts against Meta, YouTube spur new momentum for kids online safety push

Back-to-back verdicts against Meta and Google’s YouTube sent a warning shot to Big Tech this week, marking the first time juries found the social media platforms liable for their impact on kids and teens online. 

As Congress remains at a stalemate over how to regulate platforms and protect children online, legal and technology experts say the jury verdicts could offer new momentum for kids’ online safety and related litigation across the country. 

“This verdict should be a wake-up call to social media platforms that the status quo is no longer sufficient, and steps need to be taken to make sure children and teens are protected online, including on social media platforms,” Allison Fitzpatrick, partner at Davis+Gilbert advertising and marketing law firm, said Wednesday. 

The jury verdicts in California and New Mexico come after a years-long push from youth safety groups and parents, which have separately lobbied on Capitol Hill to pass legislation holding technology companies accountable for the dangers they believe their platforms pose to kids. 

In California, a jury determined Meta and YouTube were negligent in their design or operation of the platforms and ordered the companies to pay a combined $6 million to plaintiffs.

The case, brought by a 20-year-old named K.G.M., consolidated thousands of lawsuits brought by individuals, school districts and states against multiple social media companies. Lawyers said K.G.M. became addicted to the platforms, prompting or worsening mental health issues. 

A day earlier, a jury in New Mexico found Meta liable for compromising children’s safety online and violating the state’s Unfair Practices Act, which prohibits unfair, deceptive and misleading business ventures across the state. The jury awarded $375 million in damages.

The future of kids online safety 

The verdicts do not require Meta or Google to immediately change their platforms’ design or operations, but advocates hope they will push social media companies to rethink the platforms’ more addictive qualities that keep children on screens for hours. 

“This is not about that content, but really about the way that these platforms are using these addictive design features to engage kids and teens for longer on the platform,” Holly Grosshans, senior counsel for tech policy at the kids safety nonprofit Common Sense Media, told The Hill Thursday. 

In 2025, Common Sense Media found children ages 8 and under spend an average of two-and-a-half hours a day with screen media. By age 2, 40 percent of children have their own tablet. 

The damages are just a fraction of Meta and YouTube’s revenue, but Fitzpatrick predicted the threat of future verdicts and multipled damages could be enough to spark change at the companies. 

“I don’t think it’s coming from goodwill or best practices, I think there is a real threat of thousands more lawsuits coming after,” Fitzpatrick added. 

Others are hopeful this could send social media companies “back to the drawing board.”

“[What] I would want to see is a place like Meta have a public transparency platform where it’s clear that they are taking in knowledge insights from diverse people and then inputting it into the new design of platforms” so the public “knows what they’re experiencing, what they’re getting into, “ said Desmond Patton, founding director of SAFElab at the University of Pennsylvania, which researches how youth of color can navigate violence on social media.

Is this Big Tech’s ‘Big Tobacco’ moment?

Critics of Big Tech were quick to compare the moment to the legal fight tobacco companies faced in the 1990s over the addictive and detrimental health effects of nicotine. That battle resulted in a $206 billion settlement and sweeping changes to the marketing for smoking. 

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who has pushed for the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) in Congress for years and was involved with the state lawsuits against Big Tobacco, said he is “struck by similarities to winning legal strategies against Big Tech.” 

“History rhymes, even if it doesn’t repeat exactly, with behemoth corporate bullies held accountable for abuses & lies caused foreseeable death & injury to consumers,” Blumenthal wrote in an X thread Thursday, adding, “Both, despite ongoing distortion & deception, have been brought to justice by courageous survivors, their families and advocates.”  

Google and Meta both said they plan to appeal California’s case.

José Castañeda, Google spokesperson, said, “This case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site.”

A Meta spokesperson told The Hill the company “respectfully disagrees” with the verdict and will appeal, adding, “Reducing something as complex as teen mental health to a single cause risks leaving the many, broader issues teens face today unaddressed and overlooks the fact that many teens rely on digital communities to connect and find belonging.”

Meta has rolled out a series of features over the years intended to protect kids, including “teen accounts” with more privacy for users under 18.

Section 230 debate continues

Tech firms have typically avoided liability due to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which largely protects them from being held legally responsible for third party or user content. This 1996 provision was written ahead of the creation of most social media, and tech watchdog groups that argue it should be updated to reflect the new online ecosystem. 

The verdicts are some of the first to get past this shield, with experts predicting a “watershed moment” for similar claims.

Fitzpatrick said both cases are not based on content, but the design and operation features, which made it easier for lawyers to get around Section 230 and other free speech arguments that typically arise with online content. 

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have introduced legislation to sunset Section 230, though priorities around reforming the law have historically differed and no bills made it across the finish line. 

For some tech observers, this week’s verdicts are raising questions about what this means for the future of Section 230 and the downstream impact the rulings could have on small and mid-sized tech companies. 

“There are a lot of concerns that this could open the floodgates of litigation, not only to large tech platforms, but to smaller and midsized platforms,” said Jennnifer Huddleston, a senior fellow in technology policy at the libertarian think tank Cato Institute. 

“Even if those platforms ultimately are vindicated that they did everything right with their product, they have the right safety features…if we start to these hundreds or thousands of cases, that litigation could get particularly costly and really hurt their ability to potentially compete in the market,” Huddleston added, suggesting the verdicts could undermine the “competitive nature” of Section 230. 

Huddleston noted litigation against social media companies varies in type, though their outcomes “inevitably interact.” New Mexico dealt with state law enforcement, while California was private, for product liability and negligent design. 

As juries are moving on the issue, eyes also turn to Congress, which has tried and failed to pass most related legislation. 

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle who have longed to see a reckoning against Big Tech applauded the verdicts, though it is unclear whether this will lead to progress on their bills.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) used the ruling to call for the House to pass Children and Teens’ Online Privacy and Protection Act (COPPA 2.0), which passed unanimously through the Senate in March. The legislation makes it so companies cannot collect personal information on those under the age of 17 and bans targeted advertising to children.

“Big Tech is finally facing the consequences for its actions,” Markey said in a statement, adding, “Congress must do its part to impose real guardrails on these platforms.” 

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) called on her colleagues to advance KOSA out of a Senate committee, a bill that would require companies to limit addictive features and give parents tools to monitor and control their children’s social media experience. 

While these cases could renew a push among lawmakers, some predict Big Tech companies will not back down so easily.

“I think the social media companies will fight that very hard, and it’s a question of whether there are tons of lawsuits and whether they can pile up in favor of the plaintiffs and whether these organizations and certain people that are out there championing this cause can push our legislators and other government authorities to do more,” said Barry Davis, a physician and author of “The Preventioneers.”

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