This year, the world's largest social media companies face several historic lawsuits seeking to hold them responsible for the harm caused to children using their platforms. Opening arguments in one of these cases began on Monday in the Los Angeles County Superior Court. Meta, the owner of Instagram, and YouTube, a subsidiary of Google, face lawsuits accusing their platforms of deliberately addicting children and harming them. TikTok and Snapchat were initially named in the lawsuit before reaching a settlement for undisclosed amounts. Jurors got a first look at a trial expected to be long and marked by conflicting narratives between the plaintiffs and the remaining social media companies as defendants. Meta's lawyer Paul Schmidt said there is disagreement within the scientific community about the concept of social media addiction, with some researchers believing it does not exist, or that 'addiction' is not the most appropriate term to describe the intensive use of these platforms.
