Meta, malice, and the patience of all involved
Meta, malice, and the patience of all involved
26 March 2026 · Social media · Mental health · Children · Policy
A Los Angeles jury found this week that Meta and Google acted not with negligence or recklessness but malice in building platforms that a young woman, who started using YouTube at six and Instagram at nine, argues were central to her developing anxiety, depression, and body dysmorphia.1
She was awarded $6 million in damages, the punitive component reflecting the jury’s conclusion that the companies knew what they were doing and did it anyway. Meta disagrees (shocking), noting that teen mental health is “profoundly complex” and not attributable to a single app. It’s true — and beside the point.
I note that TikTok and Snapchat settled outside of court before it got quite this far.
"Teen mental health is profoundly complex and cannot be attributed to a single app."
But complexity is not the same as indeterminacy. A 2024 meta-analysis across 143 studies and over a million adolescents found that engagement-based measures of social media use — how you use it, not just how long — were more strongly associated with internalising symptoms than time alone.2 Passive consumption (think scrolling, watching, comparing) is more reliably associated with anxiety and depressed mood than active interaction, even after controlling for total time spent.3 Those mechanisms operate at 20 minutes as readily as at 16 hours. ‘Infinite scroll’ is not a neutral feature. Neither is an algorithmically curated feed of appearance content served to a nine-year-old.
The trajectory described in Kaley’s case (early platform access, progressive withdrawal from real-world relationships, internalising symptoms emerging before adolescence, appearance-related distress amplified by filters and algorithmic comparison) will be familiar to anyone who has spent time in this literature.
How you use social media matters more than how long. Passive scrolling and appearance comparison drive risk — not time on the platform alone.
Back home, the Australian context is sobering. The eSafety Commissioner’s own research found: 4 in 5 Australian children aged 8–12 were on social media in 2024. 3 in 4 had been exposed to harmful online content. More than half had experienced cyberbullying. Most platforms were relying on nothing more than a self-declared date of birth to determine whether a child was old enough to sign up.4
As of December 2025, social media platforms must now prevent under-16s from Australia from holding accounts — a move platforms have variously described as rushed, unworkable, and a threat to free expression.
"A person under the age of 16 can be more easily protected from online harm if they have an account, being the very thing that is prohibited."
The legislation allows fines of up to $49.5 million for platforms that fail to take reasonable steps to comply — signalling consequences in a way that a decade of eSafety reports could not.
What the Los Angeles verdict adds to this picture is an evidentiary record produced under oath demonstrating that at least one major platform had internal research documenting harm to children and treated it as a communications liability rather than a reason to change anything.
That record will be cited in the June federal trial in California. I expect it will be cited in Australia. Though appeals will be long and expensive (platforms will fund them comfortably), the evidentiary record produced under oath cannot go away.
References
Hays K, Saad N, Morris R. Meta and YouTube found liable in landmark social media addiction trial. BBC News. 26 March 2026. BBC
Fassi L, Thomas K, Parry DA, Leyland-Craggs A, Ford TJ, Orben A. Social media use and internalizing symptoms in clinical and community adolescent samples: a systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Pediatr. 2024;178(8):814–22. PubMed
Thorisdottir IE, Sigurvinsdottir R, Asgeirsdottir BB, Allegrante JP, Sigfusdottir ID. Active and passive social media use and symptoms of anxiety and depressed mood among Icelandic adolescents. Cyberpsychol Behav Soc Netw. 2019;22(8):535–42. PubMed
eSafety Commissioner. Digital use and risk: Online platform engagement among children aged 10 to 15. Canberra: Australian Government; 2025. Full report
Reddit Inc. v Commonwealth of Australia. High Court of Australia, filed 12 December 2025. Reported in: Lowe R. Reddit challenges Australia’s social media ban in court. Information Age. 12 December 2025. Australian Computer Society