Meta, Google Pivot in Addiction Trial to Accuser’s History (1)

As Meta Platforms Inc. and Google start presenting their defense in a landmark trial over social media addiction, the companies are pushing back on claims by the 20-year-old who brought the case that they’re solely to blame for her mental health struggles.

Lawyers for Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, have indicated they plan to call the woman’s therapists as witnesses to demonstrate that her psychological trauma came from from turmoil in her family and school life rather than the platforms.

Google’s team, meanwhile, is highlighting her historical usage of YouTube to show that in recent years, she spent an average of just a half hour a day on the video-sharing site — not enough time to qualify as addiction.

Read More: YouTube Lawyer Sees No Addiction From Half Hour of Videos

Jurors in the Los Angeles case already heard testimony from Kaley G.M. about how her constant use of Instagram and YouTube resulted in anxiety, depression and body dysmorphia. But Meta contends that if its photo-sharing app had been removed from the equation, her circumstances would not have changed.

“Kaley has faced profound challenges, and we continue to recognize all she has endured. The jury’s only task, however, is to decide if those struggles would have existed without Instagram,” said Liza Crenshaw, a spokesperson for Meta. “The evidence simply doesn’t support reducing a lifetime of hardship to a single factor, and our case will continue to underscore that reality.”

Plaintiff “K.G.M.”, center, arrives at Los Angeles Superior Court on Feb. 26.

Photographer: Mario Tama/Getty Images

The trial is a critical test for thousands of similar cases with potentially billions of dollars at stake, and which could ultimately force media companies to change how they interact with youths, one of their key audiences.

Meta and Google have denied Kaley’s claims, saying she was never formally diagnosed with “social media addiction.” They’ve also argued that their platforms are well-equipped with safety guardrails to protect young users.

“Providing young people with a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work,” Google spokesperson José Castañeda said in a statement. “In collaboration with youth, mental health and parenting experts, we built services and policies to provide young people with age-appropriate experiences, and parents with robust controls.”

TikTok Inc. and Snap Inc. reached confidential settlements with Kaley ahead of trial, but they are still defendants in thousands of other pending suits.

In the first four weeks of the trial, Kaley’s team tried to convince the jury that the networking platforms were designed by the companies to drive profit at the expense of young people’s well-being.

Read More: Social Media Plaintiff Spent 16 Hours Scrolling in a Day

When Kaley took the stand in February, she testified she started using Instagram when she was nine, behind her mom’s back. Her phone pinging with alerts, she’d scroll at school, sometimes drawing reprimands from her teachers, she said. She made several accounts to like her own posts, asking family and friends to help boost the numbers. She almost never posted a photograph of herself without a filter changing her appearance.

Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg arrives at Los Angeles Superior Court on Feb. 18.

Photographer: Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg

Kaley’s lawyers peppered Meta Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerbergand other high-profile executives at Meta and Google with questions how they attract, engage and protect teen users. The Meta executives were confronted with internal records showing they choose to keep certain platform features in place, such as beauty filters, despite staff concerns they could be harmful to young people.

As Kaley’s team rested its case Friday afternoon, the defense called its first two witnesses — administrators from the school system where she grew up in Chico, California.

A high school counselor testified that Kaley “wanted people to like her,” but struggled with how to navigate that, sometimes getting in trouble.

Kaley often spoke about being stressed out by her mother, and she expressed a desire to go to a community college with a dormitory so she didn’t have to live at home, the counselor said.

Meta’s lawyers said that in addition to Kaley’s therapists, they will call some company representatives as witnesses and present research on social media safety.

Kaley’s lawyers have argued in court filings that certain evidence about her family should be off limits to the jury as irrelevant and improper because it might prejudice the jury against her.

Meta’s attorneys countered in a filing that the judge should reject any “attempt to avoid providing the jury with the full range of evidence that speaks to that central question” of how Kaley’s mental health was harmed.

During cross-examination of Kaley in February, a Meta lawyer played footage of her mother screaming at her that the teen had posted to social media, and displayed Kaley’s lower-case Instagram story rants about her home life.

(Updates with details of Google’s defense in third paragraph.)

To contact the reporters on this story:
Madlin Mekelburg in Austin at mmekelburg@bloomberg.net;
Maia Spoto in Los Angeles at mspoto4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Ben Bain at bbain2@bloomberg.net;
Stephanie Gleason at saerts1@bloomberg.net

Peter Blumberg

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