Social media giants ask judge to scroll past youth mental health crisis

LOS ANGELES (CN) — An army of lawyers for Facebook, Google, TikTok and Snapchat crammed into a downtown LA courtroom on Tuesday to ask a judge to dismiss a sprawling legal action accusing the social media giants of generating “an unprecedented mental health crisis” and an epidemic of anxiety, depression and addiction among teenagers.

Thousands of personal injury lawsuits from all over the country have been consolidated into one coordinated judicial proceeding, set to be the first trial over whether social media apps constitute a public nuisance. The judge has selected three bellwether cases, each with one unnamed plaintiff, to proceed to trial. The verdict in those trials will, at least in theory, form the basis for settlement negotiations covering the remaining plaintiffs.

But before the trials begin, the disgruntled social media users face one final hurdle: a motion for summary judgement filed by the companies, saying that they haven’t presented enough evidence to even make it to a trial.

Defense attorneys came armed with two main arguments. Firstly, they said their clients were shielded from the torrent of complaints by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects online platforms from being liable for content generated by third parties.

Ashley Simonsen, the attorney for Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, said that the plaintiff known as K.G.M.“was addicted to Instagram because of third-party content, not because of any design feature.” She called design features like the “infinite scroll,” which shows an endless stream of content, “‘content neutral’ tools meant to facilitate communication,” therefore qualifying as “protected publishing activity” under the First Amendment and Section 230.

Simonsen played a video clip of K.G.M’s deposition, in which she said, “I have gotten a lot of content promoting that kind of stuff — just like body checking, posts [of] what I eat in a day — just a cucumber — making people feel bad if they don’t eat like that.”

K.G.M., Simonsen argued, was being harmed by the content on Instagram, which was created by a third party.

Lawyers for the other tech companies echoed those arguments.

“Let’s be crystal clear,” said YouTube attorney Brian Willen. “Exposure to third-party content is at the heart of these claims.”

Defense attorneys also said the claims were not fit for a jury trial because the plaintiffs hadn’t presented evidence that certain features on their phone-based apps had directly caused or fueled various mental health problems, including body dysmorphia and suicidal thoughts.

“K.G.M. cannot prove that Snap alone was a substantial factor in causing her alleged injuries,” said TikTok attorney David Mattern.

Plaintiff’s attorney Joseph VanZandt said that Mattern’s argument missed the point.

“K.G.M.’s excessive and problematic social media use changed the course of her childhood,” VanZandt said. Now 19, K.G.M. started watching YouTube at the age of 6. She obtained an Instagram account at 11, subverting the app’s age verification system. Two years later, she started using Snapchat. At 14, she started using TikTok.

Each of the apps, VanZandt said, were a substantial factor in her spiral into depression and anxiety, fueled by low self-esteem and body dysmorphia. As evidence, VanZandt cited one of YouTube’s own internal documents, reading, “Excessive screen time and social media use are linked to negative mental health outcomes in children, adolescents and adults.”

According to K.G.M.’s deposition, she received more than 50 sexually explicit photos over Snapchat from people she didn’t know, and that she also experienced sexual grooming. So-called “filters” on Instagram and Snapchat, which alter photos, contributed to her body dysmorphia and low self image. VanZandt said that at one point, a peer took a picture of K.G.M.; when she saw it, she had a “meltdown” because it showed her face without a filter.

As to the Section 230 argument, plaintiff’s attorney Josh Autry said the harm was not just caused by third-party content; kids are being harmed by both the content and the apps’ features, which the plaintiffs have argued are designed to be addictive in order to increase usage time and therefore revenue.

Superior Court Judge Carolyn Kuhl has already agreed to strike certain claims based on Section 230. For example, she agreed to throw out any claims against TikTok over its viral “challenges” such as the blackout challenge or the Benadryl challenge, which, respectively, encouraged users to choke themselves to the point of unconsciousness, or to take Benadryl. Those, she said, were classic examples of third-party content. She also ruled that Section 230 barred claims of negligence based on the defendants’ failure to remove material purportedly depicting child sexual abuse.

But many of the other claims, she said, were based on features designed by the apps’ software engineers.

Kuhl took the summary judgment arguments under submission. She did not indicate which way she was leaning, or when she would issue a ruling.

The first bellwether trial is scheduled to start Jan. 27, 2026.

A similar action brought by 42 states is going on in federal court in San Francisco, but it’s moving at a slower pace.

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