Meta’s Defense In Social Media Addiction Trial Is Basically A Shrug

Last week, Mark Zuckerberg sat in a Los Angeles courtroom and testified for five hours that he and his company, Meta, are not culpable in claims that they have deliberately made the platform addictive and harmful for young users. 

The testimony was part of a bellwether trial in California in which a 20-year-old woman, referred to in the trial as K.G.M. or "Kaley," alleges that Meta and YouTube deliberately designed their platforms to be addictive and that her addiction to Instagram and YouTube specifically contributed to the degradation of her mental health. Meta's lawyers argue that the mental health problems she suffered as an adolescent were caused by separate trauma and abuse. So far, the trial has hinged mainly on the question of whether social-media addiction is possible, from a psychiatric perspective. Meta is arguing that there is a difference between "problematic" and "clinically addictive" usage, and that the company and Zuckerberg are not responsible for negative mental health outcomes produced or exacerbated by extreme use of their platforms.

Meanwhile, YouTube is arguing that it simply isn't a social media platform at all, despite its pushes in recent years into short form video that looks an awful lot like Instagram and TikTok, as well as photo-based posts.