Meta, YouTube negligent in social media harm case, jury finds

In a scene from “Can’t Look Away,” families at a hearing hold photos of loved ones who they say were victims of these platforms.

by Zach Jaworski, 2025-26 duPont Fellow

Two of the largest social media platforms in the world harmed a young user by intentionally addicting her, a California jury found Wednesday. 

Earlier this year, Bloomberg News and DCTV won a duPont-Columbia Award for “Can’t Look Away,” a carefully researched documentary that followed lawyers fighting similar cases against social media companies.

Meta – the parent company of Facebook and Instagram – and Google-owned video streaming service YouTube were negligent, the jury found, knowing that their product was dangerous and failing to warn users of risks associated with it. 

The jury ordered the companies to pay the plaintiff – identified in the lawsuit as 20-year-old K.G.M. – $6 million in compensatory damages for claims she developed anxiety and depression as a result of using the platforms.Tech companies could lose hundreds of millions of dollars in future rulings. 

Legal experts believe it could be a bellwether decision, setting a precedent for hundreds of other social media related harm cases, specifically amongst young users. Earlier in the week, a jury on a similar case in New Mexico also found for the plaintiff.

“Nearly one year after the film's release, these issues are at the forefront of the public consciousness,” Bloomberg’s lead reporter for the documentary Olivia Carville told us in reaction to the news. “And they don't seem to be going away any time soon."

The January duPont Awards ceremony was held the day after jury selection began on the California case. Accepting the duPont Silver Baton, Co-director Matthew O’Neill praised the efforts of the attorneys committed to taking on Big Tech, and those who tell their stories: “On February 9th, Mark Zuckerberg will be called to testify in public in Los Angeles. That matters. And it suggests the persistence of social justice lawyers and the persistence of journalists bend history towards justice. And accountability is possible.“

Watch “Can’t Look Away” here.