Meta suffered two historic losses in two days in the courts last week. First, in New Mexico, a jury assessed that the company was liable to the tune of $375m for failing to protect young people from its products. Less than 24 hours later, a Los Angeles jury awarded a 20-year-old plaintiff nearly $6m in damages for Meta and Google’s negligence.
The social media companies are facing a reckoning. It’s a shift in momentum, for the first time in years, that renews scrutiny of Big Tech companies such as Meta, Google, TikTok and Snap, who have routinely created addictive products and put them in the hands of young people – my generation – with little regard for our safety and wellbeing.
Throughout these trials, employees said as much on the record: addictive design is the business model, and young people are the collateral damage. YouTube employees wrote in an email: “Goal is not viewership, it's viewer addiction.” Meta’s senior leadership wrote in an email: “Mark has decided that the top priority for the company ... is teens.” And there are deeply concerning harms that are downstream from making a product meant to maximise engagement at all costs. A 2019 report at Instagram found “that nearly 2 million accounts operated by minors had been recommended to ‘groomers’.”
Mary Rodee, whose 15-year-old son died by suicide, in front of a banner listing victims' names outside court in LA, 25 March, 2026. Photo: Frederic J. Brown / Getty
That collateral damage has a face. These harms aren’t abstract, and young people have been sounding the alarm – if they are still alive to tell their stories. Sextortion and exploitation resulting in suicide, addiction, and disordered eating stemming from algorithmic rabbit holes are some of the most visceral effects – not to mention worsening mental health amid a mental health crisis in America.
In California, the case centred around a young person named Kaley (her last name was withheld by her attorneys to protect her privacy) who said addictive design on Meta, YouTube, and other social media apps had played a significant role in the worsening of her mental health as a child and teenager. Kaley bravely testified at her own trial, recounting how social media exacerbated anxiety, depression, self-harm and body dysmorphia. In New Mexico, the state brought its case alleging Meta’s failure to protect young people on its products. I testified as the final witness for the state in the case, telling the jury about our Instagram Teen Accounts research and what it’s like to grow up on Instagram with few protections.
It’s a massive turn of the tide. American families are seeing social media companies for what they are
In 2023, I co-founded Design It For Us, a coalition of young people working to hold Big Tech accountable. That February, I sat behind my co-founder, Emma Lembke, as she testified before the US Senate’s judiciary committee to advocate for legislation to hold Big Tech companies accountable for the harm she and so many others had faced growing up in an unregulated digital age.
Over the years, young people representing Design It For Us kept coming to Capitol Hill and the halls of power on dozens of occasions to tell their stories and advocate for design-based regulations that would hold Big Tech companies accountable for the way they design their products.
Relatives of victims outside Los Angeles Superior Court, 25 March 2026. Photo: Frederic J. Brown / Getty
Three years on, the verdicts in these cases have thrust Congress’s abject failure to act back into the spotlight, as attorneys general and plaintiffs are driving action through the courts to change the incentives of social media platforms. Instead of redoubling their efforts, our legislative body has pushed for state regulatory AI amnesty, restricting access to social media, or shifting responsibility to other companies while watering down legislation meant to tackle social media’s core design and failing to deliver antitrust reform.
Court action to get this far, with juries of ordinary people siding with young people, is unprecedented. Social media companies have long held up section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a 1996 US law that provides immunity for online companies with respect to content on their services, shielding them from being held accountable as publishers. Last week, the litigants in both California and New Mexico pushed back against Big Tech’s attempts to wield the standard as immunity – and won.
It’s a massive turn of the tide for companies that have portrayed themselves as innocent in all areas of accountability. American families are seeing social media companies for what they are. Politicians who were previously bought off by Big Tech will be feeling the pressure. The courtroom doors have been swung wide open.
Meta’s stock fell 8% last week, with analysts attributing the staggering drop to the risk of further litigation. A panicked Zuckerberg raced to Capitol Hill last Thursday, presumably to stave off the legislative momentum now barrelling his way. The house of cards is falling.
As Big Tech and its allies scramble to pump the airwaves full of their laundered version of events, we should not lose sight of what this means for young people. This is a moment that honours those who are no longer here to tell their story. This is a moment of justice for the young people who have stood up to share their stories time and again. This moment is a testament to our work to protect the next generation who will grow up online as we push towards safer design. This is a verdict not just from a jury, but from a generation.
Zamaan Qureshi is the co-founder and director of campaigns and policy for Design It For Us