Skip to content 
Mark Zuckerberg is finally in front of a jury. He is defending Meta in a huge trial in Los Angeles. The case says Instagram and YouTube used things like infinite scroll and notifications and algorithmic feeds to hook young users and make their mental health worse. Meta says it did not target kids. It points to safety tools and rules it put in place. It also says the harm the plaintiff is referring to cannot be blamed solely on the platforms.
Zuckerberg takes stand in landmark trial on youth social media addiction | PBS NewsHour
When you watch the segment the fight becomes clear. The people suing use internal emails and presentations to make their case. They show doubts about enforcing age limits for users under thirteen. They show talks about teen engagement. They use this to argue that Meta knew what it was doing. Zuckerberg calls that way of framing things misleading. He says Metas approach has changed over time. The case is less about one teens screen time and more about whether design choices can be treated like the product that caused the harm.
Public reaction is split because the science and the words people use are being argued over. Some lawmakers and families call this an addiction crisis. They want duty of care laws like KOSA to force platforms to turn off addictive features for minors. Civil liberties groups like the EFF warn that KOSA style rules could pressure platforms into censoring too much speech just to stay safe from lawsuits.
Here is a research backed counterpoint that often comes up in this debate. It asks whether people mistake heavy social media habit for real clinical addiction. It also looks at how addiction framing can make people feel like they have less control.
Overestimates of social media addiction are common but costly (Scientific Reports, 2025)
That is what is at stake here. Courts and lawmakers are moving toward tobacco-style accountability. At the same time researchers warn that the addiction label itself can twist behavior and policy. If the jury sides with the person suing it could speed up more lawsuits and new rules aimed at how products are built. If Meta wins it strengthens the argument that the causes are too complex. It backs the idea that parent issues and social factors and mental health problems cannot be boiled down to just an apps design.
