Meta and YouTube have been found legally responsible for creating addictive platforms. Meta is the company that owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Kaylee, known only by her first name, started the lawsuit against them in Los Angeles in the United States, claiming that they had negatively impacted her mental health. She received $6 million in damages. Since the age of nine, Kaylee experienced struggles with her family and at school. She added that these platforms made these struggles worse and left her with depression and unhealthy thoughts about herself.
A Meta spokesperson told the BBC that these complex teenage struggles could not be blamed on using their platforms. A spokesperson from Google, the owner of YouTube, told the BBC that their platform had been misunderstood because they're not a social media site. Kaylee's court finding came a day after a separate trial in New Mexico, which ordered Meta to pay $375 million for misleading people about the child safety of their platforms.
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