00:00In Los Angeles Monday, as lawyers for YouTube and Meta arrive to defend their clients from a landmark civil suit,
00:07parents who blame social media for the deaths of their children gathered outside the courthouse in solidarity with the plaintiff.
00:14If we can start proving that social media companies are responsible for their faulty product and their addictive algorithms,
00:20then we can start forcing social media companies to change.
00:24That plaintiff, identified by her initials KGM, is now 20 years old.
00:29She was just a young child when she began using Instagram and YouTube.
00:33She says her addiction to the platforms exacerbated depression and suicidal thoughts.
00:38Her lead attorney making his case with the classic children's ABC building blocks,
00:43as he accused the defendants of purposely addicting the brains of children,
00:48with features like infinite scrolling, autoplay videos, and algorithmic recommendations.
00:53They didn't just build apps, they built traps.
00:56They didn't want users, they wanted addicts.
00:59Meta and YouTube's lawyers say KGM's mental health problems were due to factors beyond social media.
01:06Snapchat and TikTok were also named in the suit, but settled out of court before the trial began.
01:11The Los Angeles lawsuit is just one of several court cases facing top U.S. social media firms this year.
01:18Meta was in the dock once again Monday in New Mexico.
01:21U.S. federal law protects social media firms from liability for content posted by third-party users.
01:36But the very design of the apps is leading to a global wave of efforts to ban them for children.
01:41Australia has already done so.
01:44France, Spain, Greece, and India are now weighing their own similar moves.
01:50Thank you, John.
Comments