A California jury on Wednesday found that Meta and Google were to blame for the depression and anxiety of a woman who compulsively used social media as a small child, awarding her $3 million in a rare verdict holding Silicon Valley accountable for its role in fueling a youth mental health crisis.
The jurors concluded that Meta and Google should pay the woman $3 million in compensatory damages, with Meta on the hook for 70% of that amount.
The jury also decided that Meta and Google’s actions should trigger punitive damages, which means there will be a separate phase of the trial where the jury will decide what amount of damages are appropriate to punish the multi-trillion-dollar companies for their conduct.
No real mention of the parents other than a line about how they’re lining up to sue too. When I was a kid, my parents made me log every moment I spent in front of the computer in a book along with what I was doing. I got into some stuff, but I also got sat down and talked to a few times. Many of my friends had to share phones with siblings. The computer was in a public space and we were all told to never use our real name online. Where did things go wrong and why?
I dislike Meta an FB a lot, but I think it’s ridiculous to make them responsible for every kid in America. Isn’t there a confirmation dialogue that says you’re not allowed to use it if you are under 13? The parents gave them a tool that can be used to look up >>>almost anything<<<. Thats like handing your kid a metaphorical RPG and sending them out the door to go play. Making sure kids have guidance and help in developing media literacy is at least partially the parents job.
Having said that, I do think there is a lot of other bad stuff META did that should have already put them out of business. In my opinion, they’re obviously a bad actor but blaming them infantalizes everyone else. Poor little Americans, powerless against the big bad Meta. Also, why is it okay to manipulate adults? If anything, these feeds should be boldly labeled as “does not reflect reality”, or “this content has been algorithmically selected to be addictive, take frequent breaks, touch grass”
db2@lemmy.world 1 day ago
That’s like sentencing a murderer to pay $3 in restitution which he can and will appeal.
spongebue@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I thought the same thing for a moment, until I realized that’s for one person. Now imagine a similar class action lawsuit. Of course it’s not realistic to expect that dollar amount multiplied by that many people, but it could be a pretty significant dent.
Bluegrass_Addict@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
yes… yes it is realistic.
the precedent is set that it costs 3million per person…
these companies should get zero free passes. hit them with the only thing they care about…money. these companies, if law was actually useful, would have been shut down many manyany years ago, and CEO’s would have been jailed by now. if the law actually mattered that is…
brandon@piefed.social 23 hours ago
There will be additional proceedings to determine the amount of punitive damages to apply as well. So this probably isn’t the entire judgement.
Whether it survived appeal to establish a precedent for other complaints is another story.