The jury selection process is anticipated to last at least a few days as the case moves forward on Tuesday in Los Angeles County’s California Superior Court, where 75 potential jurors are questioned daily through at least Thursday.
Recommended Stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
For thousands of other lawsuits seeking damages for social media harms, the trial is regarded as a test case. Snapchat’s parent company Snap Inc., the lawsuit’s fourth party, settled the matter last week for an undisclosed sum.
The trial, which will last six to eight weeks, is expected to feature executives including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
A Californian woman, identified as KGM, 19, claimed she became dependent on the company’s platforms when she was just a teenager. She asserts that this was accomplished by deliberate design choices made by businesses that wanted to increase revenue by making their platforms more enticing for children.
She claims that the apps caused her to have suicidal thoughts and feel depressed, and she is suing the companies for damages. This case, which the plaintiffs refer to as “social media addiction,” is the first to be tried in court this year.
According to the lawsuit, “Defendants deliberately integrated a range of design features into their products to maximize youth engagement to drive advertising revenue,” “using heavily from the behavioral and neurobiological techniques used by slot machines and exploited by the cigarette industry.”
According to experts, the Big Tobacco trials, which led to a 1998 settlement that forbids cigarette manufacturers from paying billions of dollars for medical expenses and restricts marketing to minors, are similar.
If successful, this argument could obstruct Section 230, which exempts tech companies from liability for content posted on their platforms, and the companies’ First Amendment shield.
The tech companies have employed attorneys who have represented businesses in well-known addiction cases.
They contest the claims that their products intentionally harm children, citing a number of safeguards they have added over the years, and contend that they are not responsible for third-party content posted on their websites.
At dozens of high schools across the US, Meta has sponsored parent workshops on teen online safety for at least the past two years. Additionally, TikTok sponsored other gatherings and provided tutorials on features, including the option to set a nighttime screen limit.
Mothers Against Media Addiction, the founder of the organization that supports smartphone bans in schools, reported to Reuters as saying tech companies were “using every lever of influence that you can imagine.”
Parents who are unsure of their faith can be very perplexed, she continued.
On Monday, the lower house in France approved a ban on using social media for children under the age of 15. Before a final vote in the lower house, the legislation will now pass to the Senate.
Leave a Reply