Today, The Tech Oversight Project issued the following statement after a verdict was handed down in the first case in the social media addiction trials. This was the first product liability case to go to trial that any Big Tech company has faced and was brought forward by plaintiff K.G.M., who experienced dangerous mental health harms after becoming addicted to social media platforms run by defendants Meta and YouTube. Her case against TikTok and Snap was settled before the trial began.

“The era of Big Tech invincibility is over – this ruling is an earthquake that shakes Big Tech’s predatory business model to its core. After years of gaslighting from companies like Google and Meta, new evidence and testimony have pulled back the curtain and validated the harms young people and parents have been telling the world about for years. These products were purposefully designed to harm, addict millions of young people, and lead to lifelong mental health consequences,” said Sacha Haworth, Executive Director of The Tech Oversight Project. “This trial was proof that if you put CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg on the stand before a judge and jury of their peers, the tech industry’s wanton disregard for people will be on full display. We have the documents, we have the evidence, and now is the time for Congress to step up and finally pass the Senate’s Kids Online Safety Act, so that we can finally protect kids and save lives.”

More than 2,000 plaintiffs are alleging social media companies like Meta, Snapchat, TikTok, and Alphabet knowingly designed addictive products that expose children to predators, exploitation, and self-harm. The trials are considered the most significant Big Tech accountability litigation to date, drawing parallels to precedent-setting products liability cases against Big Tobacco.

The evidence now in the public record shows how companies knowingly engineered products with design features such as infinite scroll, push notifications, and algorithmic amplification. For Big Tech companies, youth engagement is a financial imperative. Social media platforms generate billions in annual ad revenue from U.S. youth. According to new Pew Research Center survey data, 36% of U.S. teens say they use TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, and/or Facebook “almost constantly.”

The trials have already produced an unprecedented public record of damning internal company documents.