US court finds social media giants guilty of detrimental to young people' mental health
發佈日期: 2026-03-26 20:31
TVB News
For years, parents, teenagers, paediatricians, educators and whistleblowers have pushed the idea that social media is detrimental to young people's mental health and can lead to addiction, eating disorders, sexual exploitation and suicide.
For the first time, juries in two US states took their side.
Meta and YouTube have been ordered to pay millions of US dollars in damages to a 20-year-old woman after a jury decided the social media giant and video streamer designed their platforms to hook young users without concern for their well being.
Chief judge Bryan Biedscheid said: "Did Meta violate the Unfair Practices Act by engaging in an unfair or deceptive trade practice? The jury answers yes."
But the change has come too late for some parents.
Brian Montgomery, father of Walker who died by suicide, said: "Do you ever think about things and you recognise a change and it benefits other people and you wish you could have, could have benefited you? And so that's, I mean, that's, Walker's not coming back. So very thankful, very hopeful that there will be significant change."
This is Brian with his son Walker in happier days.
"Here's one right here, Walker, who's 16 years old. We lost him to sextorion scam in December 22."
Someone pretending to be a teenage girl messaged Walker through Instagram and seduced him with cybersex.
The teen died by suicide soon after. His dad said Walker was a respectful, hard working son who loved athletics and the outdoors.
And this is Becca Schmill who died after taking drugs laced with fentanyl she bought on social media.
Her mother Deb Schmill said: "Becca was funny. She was just adorable, a love."
Mark Zuckerberg in deposition shown in court earlier this month. Zuckerberg said: "We did wanna make sure we had the time to work with different organisations and implement those kind of tools before fully rolling this out."
The California jury's decision Wednesday in a first-of-its-kind lawsuit could influence the outcome of thousands of similar lawsuits accusing social media companies of deliberately causing harm.
Meta's spokesperson made a brief statement after the verdict was announced, saying the company disagreed with the verdict and would appeal.
Spokesperson Ashly Nikkole Davis said: "We respectfully disagree with the verdict and will appeal. Teen mental health is profoundly complex and cannot be linked to a single app. We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously as every case is different, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online."
