Bellwether trials are complicated but consequential. Pulled from a morass of claims, they’re designed to test how a jury responds to a broader legal theory. Often, they fall flat.
Today in a California court, one did not.
Kaley, a 20-year-old who alleged that social media harmed her childhood by addicting her and keeping her on platforms like Instagram for up to 16 hours a day, won $3 million in damages. A jury found Meta (the parent company of Instagram) and Alphabet (the parent company of Google and YouTube) liable, assigning 70% of the damages to Meta and 30% to Alphabet. TikTok and Snapchat, also named as defendants, settled before trial without admitting fault.
The amount—roughly 0.0015% of Meta’s 2025 revenue, and even less for Alphabet—is negligible for the companies, though punitive damages have yet to be decided. The precedent, however, may not be, as the case calls into question whether Section 230—the federal law that protects tech companies from liability by treating them as platforms rather than publishers—will indeed continue to act as an effective shield.
In a move that more or less skirted Section 230, the jury found that Meta’s design and operation of Instagram was negligent, and that this negligence was a “substantial factor” in the harm Kaley suffered. It also found the company negligent for failing to warn users about the potential risks of its products.
A Meta spokesperson said the company disagrees with the verdict and plans to appeal, adding that its lawyers are “evaluating our legal options.” A Google spokesperson echoed that position: “We disagree with the verdict and plan to appeal.”
Both companies have strong incentives to challenge the ruling, as the decision “is going to open up some floodgates” and “definitely makes it more likely there will be more lawsuits,” says Duke University public policy professor Robyn Caplan.
The bellwether case establishes that at least one jury believes there is a case to answer, though two of the 12 jurors dissented. It also arrives just one day after a separate ruling in New Mexico, where Meta was found to have endangered children by failing to adequately protect younger users. That case resulted in a $375 million penalty for violating state consumer protection laws.
More cases are already on the way. Another trial is scheduled for July in Los Angeles, followed by a broader case this summer in Oakland, California, that’s being brought by multiple states and school districts.
What happens next is anyone’s guess. “The remaining trials will need to grapple with real evidence of causation, and that bar is much harder to clear,” says Vidushi Dyall, senior director of legal analysis at the tech industry trade group Chamber of Progress. The Los Angeles and New Mexico cases, she adds, hinged on a theory the scientific community has yet to reach consensus on. “These cases are all highly fact-specific, and I think an appeal is inevitable on two fronts: to avoid an even bigger flood of suits and to secure a more concrete precedent than a jury verdict to validate a very precarious theory.”
But for the L.A. trial, the broader signal may matter as much as the outcome. “We have to see what happens in appeal, but this case is certainly an important signal,” says Catalina Goanta, associate professor of law at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. “This is a case that paints a dire picture of social media platforms’ failure to take their legal responsibilities seriously.”
The risks for Big Tech extend beyond the courts, as the ruling may embolden lawmakers to act. “We see this verdict as a clarion call to elected officials at every level of government: The time for half-measures and delays has passed,” says John M. Bennett, director of the California Initiative for Technology and Democracy, a lobby group. “Our children cannot afford to wait any longer. The lives, futures, and mental health of an entire generation are at stake. History will judge whether we had the courage to act.”
