META VERDICT –
March 25, 2026 – A Los Angeles jury delivered a rare verdict against Silicon Valley giants Wednesday — the second finding in two days — boosting hopes of safety advocates that courts will deliver a long-sought reckoning over social media’s harms to children. The jury found Meta, the operator of Facebook and Instagram, and video platform YouTube negligent and awarded $6 million in damages to a young woman who alleged she had become hooked on the companies’ services as a child. The verdict came at the end of a month-long trial that featured testimony by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and the morning after a jury in New Mexico ordered Meta to pay $375 million in penalties for endangering children.
The twin verdicts are signs of cracks in legal protections that for decades made tech companies seem almost impervious, as lawyers accuse the platforms of putting addictive or otherwise harmful features into their products. There are thousands more cases waiting to be heard, with young internet users, parents, school districts and state attorneys general all seeking compensation and changes to how social media services operate. All told, companies are facing potentially transformative damage awards.
