Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg To Face Jury In Landmark Social Media Addiction Trial.

Los Angeles; February 2026: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg will take the stand in Los Angeles today in a trial that could reshape social media. The plaintiffs are accusing platforms like Instagram and Facebook of being intentionally designed to hook teenagers, sparking a nationwide youth mental health crisis. The case hinges on whether the tech companies engineer “defective products” to exploit vulnerabilities in young people’s brains.

Zuckerberg’s appearance before a Los Angeles jury is the most highly anticipated of the trial. The crux of the trial is one question that could have sweeping consequences for Silicon Valley: Are social media platforms “defective products” engineered to exploit vulnerabilities in young people’s brains?

Attorneys for the tech companies have countered that a child experiencing mental health issues after using a platform does not mean social media is responsible for the child’s problems. Instead, they argue that the industry has become a scapegoat for the complex emotional issues children face that can have many root causes.

For years, social media companies have avoided legal consequences by using a legal shield known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The law protects online platforms from liability for user-generated content by treating sites as intermediaries rather than publishers. Now, lawyers are suing the tech companies under product liability laws. They argue that the platforms are essentially defective products because of features such as infinite scroll and autoplay. The plaintiffs say that the social media sites’ impact on children’s brains is similar to that of a slot machine and that the companies should be held accountable. If the jury sides with the plaintiffs, the case could result in a multi-billion-dollar settlement and significant changes to social media apps’ operations.

Yet lawyers for the parents suing point to internal documents at the companies stressing the goal of making social media apps difficult to put down through features like infinite scroll, auto-play, likes, beauty filters and push notifications. “These companies built machines designed to addict the brains of children”, lawyer Mark Lanier said during the trial’s opening statements. “And they did it on purpose”.

The woman at the centre of the case, a 20-year-old from California known only as KGM, or Kaley, in legal documents, says she started compulsively using YouTube when she was 06 years old and later, around age 09, she began scrolling on Instagram. Kaley said her use of the platforms worsened her depression and suicidal thoughts. Jurors are expected to hear from her at length when she takes the witness stand later in the trial.

There’s a lot at stake for the tech companies, since this is considered a test case, potentially shaping the outcome of some 1,600 other pending social media addiction cases that have been consolidated from parents of children and school districts.

Meanwhile in New Mexico, Meta is facing a separate consumer protection trial that is now underway brought by the state’s attorney general, who accuses the tech giant of failing to prevent child sexual exploitation on its platforms. It’s unclear whether Zuckerberg will take the witness stand in that case.

In the Los Angeles trial, which is in state court, the jury needs three-fourths agreement, so 9 out of 12 jurors, to side with either KGM or the tech companies. A win for the family could lead to serious monetary damages and platform-wide changes to social media apps. The outcome of this trial is anticipated to open the door to settlement talks for the hundreds of other suits.

For decades, Silicon Valley has maintained a nearly impenetrable legal perimeter in the form of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a 1996 law that allows tech companies to avoid legal responsibility for what its users post. But in recent years, plaintiffs’ lawyers have employed a novel legal tactic to get around Section 230 by bringing cases against social media companies under product liability laws akin to a manufacturer sued over a defective product.

In her original suit, KGM sued Meta, Google, TikTok and Snap, accusing the companies of borrowing techniques used by Big Tobacco in decades past to target young people to get them addicted, all the while ignoring internal research that their products would cause harm to teens. Both TikTok and Snap settled before trial, leaving Meta and Google as the two remaining defendants.

For weeks, the courtroom has been filled with bereaved parents holding framed photos of their children who died after encountering harm on social media.

Julianna Arnold, whose daughter died at 17 after being lured by a predator she met on social media, has been among those attending the trial proceedings in Los Angeles. She and other parents are hoping for a verdict against the tech companies.

“We lost our kids, and there’s nothing we can do about that. But what we can do is inform other parents and families about these harms and that these platforms are dangerous and that we need to put guardrails on these companies”, Arnold told media reporters recently. “And they cannot just do whatever they want when they want, how they want. And I want parents to know that these are not safe platforms for their children”.

COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT, 47 U.S.C. 230 –

Sec. 230. Protection for private blocking and screening of offensive material

(A) Findings –

The Congress finds the following:

• The rapidly developing array of Internet and other interactive computer services available to individual Americans represent an extraordinary advance in the availability of educational and informational resources to our citizens.

• These services offer users a great degree of control over the information that they receive, as well as the potential for even greater control in the future as technology develops.

• The Internet and other interactive computer services offer a forum for a true diversity of political discourse, unique opportunities for cultural development, and myriad avenues for intellectual activity.

• The Internet and other interactive computer services have flourished, to the benefit of all Americans, with a minimum of government regulation.

• Increasingly Americans are relying on interactive media for a variety of political, educational, cultural, and entertainment services.

(B) Policy –

It is the policy of the United States:

• to promote the continued development of the Internet and other interactive computer services and other interactive media;

• to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet and other interactive computer services, unfettered by Federal or State regulation;

• to encourage the development of technologies which maximize user control over what information is received by individuals, families, and schools who use the Internet and other interactive computer services;

• to remove disincentives for the development and utilization of blocking and filtering technologies that empower parents to restrict their children’s access to objectionable or inappropriate online material;

• to ensure vigorous enforcement of Federal criminal laws to deter and punish trafficking in obscenity, stalking, and harassment by means of computer.

(C) Protection for ”Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material –

Treatment of publisher or speaker – No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

Civil liability: No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of –

• any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected;

• any action taken to enable or make available to information content providers or others the technical means to restrict access to material described in paragraph (1).

(D) Obligations of interactive computer service –

A provider of interactive computer service shall, at the time of entering an agreement with a customer for the provision of interactive computer service and in a manner deemed appropriate by the provider, notify such customer that parental control protections (such as computer hardware, software, or filtering services) are commercially available that may assist the customer in limiting access to material that is harmful to minors. Such notice shall identify, or provide the customer with access to information identifying, current providers of such protections.

(E) Effect on other laws –

• No effect on criminal law: Nothing in this section shall be construed to impair the enforcement of section 223 or 231 of this title, chapter 71 (relating to obscenity) or 110 (relating to sexual exploitation of children) of title 18, or any other Federal criminal statute.

• No effect on intellectual property law: Nothing in this section shall be construed to limit or expand any law pertaining to intellectual property.

• State law: Nothing in this section shall be construed to prevent any State from enforcing any State law that is consistent with this section. No cause of action may be brought and no liability may be imposed under any State or local law that is inconsistent with this section.

• No effect on communications privacy law: Nothing in this section shall be construed to limit the application of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 or any of the amendments made by such Act, or any similar State law.

(F) Definitions –

As used in this section:

• Internet: The term ”Internet” means the international computer network of both Federal and non-Federal interoperable packet switched data networks.

• Interactive computer service: The term ”interactive computer service” means any information service, system, or access software provider that provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server, including specifically a service or system that provides access to the Internet and such systems operated or services offered by libraries or educational institutions.

• Information content provider: The term ”information content provider” means any person or entity that is responsible, in whole or in part, for the creation or development of information provided through the Internet or any other interactive computer service.

• Access software provider: The term ”access software provider” means a provider of software (including client or server software), or enabling tools that do any one or more of the following: filter, screen, allow, or disallow content; pick, choose, analyse, or digest content; or transmit, receive, display, forward, cache, search, subset, organise, reorganise, or translate content.

Suvro Sanyal – Team Maverick.