UPDATE: Turns out the $3 million wasn’t a joke, to paraphrase Public Enemy.
The relatively small amount in compensatory damages a LA jury slapped Meta and Google-owned YouTube with earlier today was the figure to watch when it came to punitive damages too. In what is not even a slap on the wrist, jurors just now awarded plaintiffs in the West Coast social media addiction trial exactly $3 million in punitive damages.
Which means, for all the stinging condemnation of their products by the courts over the past 48 hours, Big Tech will be paying out a total of $6 million in the LA case.
Pinpointing the social media companies as predators and providers of addictive algorithm assault against minors, the breakdown on the punititve damages essentially equaled the compensatory damages, with $2.1 million for Meta and $900,000 for YouTube.
The implications of this verdict and the $375 million one out of New Mexico on March 24 will be debated in and out of the courts for ages, as will the moral, business and technological blast radiuses. Meta have already made it pretty clear they plan to appeal both cases.
However, for a larger financial perspective, think on this when you ponder both that $6 million in LA and $375 million in Santa Fe: Meta raked in $201 billion in profits last year.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on January 31, 2024 in DC. The committee heard testimony from the heads of the largest tech firms on the dangers of child sexual exploitation on social media. (Photo: Getty )
PREVIOUSLY, 11:07 AM: After over a week of deliberations, a Los Angeles jury today delivered a potential game-changing verdict of negligence against social media giants Meta and Google for creating addictive products and platforms that harm minors.
With possibly tens of millions in punitive damages still to be determined, the jury has awarded $3 million in compensatory damages to plaintiff K.G.M. Of that, Meta gets 70% of the blame, and Google has to own 30%, the jury said Tuesday.
Obviously, even with the damning conclusion from the jury that the defendants “acted with malice, oppression, or fraud,” that $3 million is next to nothing to the Mark Zuckerberg-owned Facebook and Instagram parent company and YouTube’s bosses. However, if yesterday’s $375 million verdict out of a similar social media trial in New Mexico is any blueprint, expect the punitive award in the West Coast trial to be a comparable amount.
That process, which sees lawyers from both sides given 20 minutes each to pitch the jurors, is already underway now the compensatory damages are out of the way. A decision on punitive damages is expected by EOD Tuesday.
At the core of both the California and New Mexico trials is the premise that social media and its algorithms and sticky attraction have harsh consequences of thoughts of suicide, depression, sleep disruption, eating disorders, body dysmorphia, and anxiety.
Today’s non-unanimous verdict in L.A. and the one out of Santa Fe on March 24 are a long way from settled.
While the data harvesting that propels tech companies was left relatively unexplored in the trials, it is undeniable that both put the business models of social media platforms on shaky ground. At this point, whether this ends up like the tobacco cases of the 1990s, increased guardrails of use and alterations in algorithms and other designs are near certain to be imposed in one way or another. Once the appeals are launched, regulatory spotlights are likely to be ramped up with big bucks settlements paid out to keep the courts and lawmakers out of the matters.
Still, like Monday’s verdict out of the Land of Enchantment, Meta today said they aren’t walking away yet without a legal fight. “We respectfully disagree with the verdict and are evaluating our legal options,” a company spokesperson told Deadline after the City of Angels verdict was read out in L.A. Superior Court Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl’s DTLA courtroom this morning.
New Mexico’s Attorney General saw today’s verdict as solid justification for his office’s efforts.
“Juries in New Mexico and California have recognized that Meta’s public deception and design features are putting children in harm’s way,” said Raúl Torrez in a statement provided to Deadline. “In the next phase of New Mexico’s trial, my number one priority remains changing the company’s longstanding and dangerous practice of prioritizing profits over children’s safety. We will seek court-mandated changes to Meta’s platforms that offer protections for kids.”
Zuckerberg did not testify live in the New Mexico trial, but did appear before the judge and jury in L.A. on February 18.
Minimizing the impact of social media platforms and calling out young users like now 20-year-old K.G.M. (who started on the apps at the age of 6, she said during the two-month-long trial) for lying about their age to sign up. “If you do something that’s not good for people, maybe they’ll spend more time short term [on Instragam], but if they’re not happy with it, they’re not going to use it over time.,” the suited, booted and well-rehearsed Zuckerberg said to K.G.M.’s lawyer Mark Lanier last month. “I’m not trying to maximize the amount of time people spend every month.”
He did want to minimize the amount of time Meta and other techlords spent in court.
Before TikTok and Snap signed 11th hour confidential agreements with the plaintiffs and before this trial began on February 9, all the defendants moved to have the case dismissed based on elements of the Communications Decency Act and the First Amendment. Judge Kuhl rejected those arguments in November of last year, stating the companies “were capable of causing the type of mental harms allegedly suffered.”
FYI – there are around 2,000 other lawsuits pending around the country from parents, school districts and others against the social media companies. They all got a shot in the arm this week.
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