theleftbriefing

A California jury just made history. After nine days of deliberations, they ruled that Meta and Google are liable for deliberately addicting a young woman to their platforms — starting when she was just six years old. It's the first time a jury has held social media companies legally responsible for treating their apps like defective products designed to exploit children's developing brains. The verdict is $6 million. And it could reshape everything — for the 2,000-plus similar lawsuits waiting in the wings, for how these companies operate, and for every parent who's ever watched their kid disappear into a phone screen and wondered if they were the only one who saw something was wrong. You weren't. And now a jury of your peers is saying the same thing. What the Jury Actually Decided The plaintiff — identified in court documents only as KGM, and referred to as "Kaley" by her legal team — first used YouTube at age six and Instagram at age nine. She grew up, beca...