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.
That’s like sentencing a murderer to pay $3 in restitution which he can and will appeal.
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.
yes… yes it is realistic.
the precedent is set that it costs 3million per person…
3 million plus legal fees by the defense, so probably closer to 3.5 million.
Far from it actually. If anything appeals may pare down damages and nonpunitive damages must be backed by actual calculations. The bigger point I think is this sort of case can survive.
The real takeaway here is not the dollar amount. It’s that a jury finally recognized the mechanism: these platforms are designed to hijack attention, especially for young users, and that design choice has consequences. The 3M is a start. What matters is whether this changes how they engineer engagement or just becomes a cost of doing business.
I wasn’t commenting on what should morally or legally be. I’m just saying that if there’s, say, 1 million plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit it’s not realistic to expect 3 million dollars (minus attorneys fees) in each person’s bank account. That would be 3 trillion dollars, not including whatever punitive damages end up being. There’s a practical issue to be considered.
I’m going to move to Iceland.
what’s in Iceland?
Bankers in jail after the 2008 subprime mortgages crash.
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.