Social media trials usher in Big Tech's latest moment of reckoning

Social media giants spent more than a decade assuring lawmakers, regulators, judges and the public that their platforms are safe for kids, despite years of accusations that the tech platforms knowingly designed products that were causing harm.

This week, that campaign hit existential obstacles — after juries in two separate trials declared that the exact opposite was true.

“The message is clear,” New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, whose investigation resulted in a jury finding on Tuesday that Meta must pay $375 million for failing to protect kids from child predators, told POLITICO in an interview. “It's time to change the way these companies do business.”

Less than 24 hours after the New Mexico verdict, jurors ruled against Meta and Google-owned YouTube in a Los Angeles social media addiction trial, ordering a total of $6 million in damages.

The widely popular platforms, along with others like Snap and TikTok, once appeared unstoppable as they designed their algorithms for maximum user engagement. Now they’re suddenly facing a minefield of legal, regulatory and political threats that could upend their business models and rock one of America’s richest industries to its core — even though they’ve weathered similar threats time and time again.

Tech’s critics are pouncing, determined that this time they will deliver Silicon Valley its long-threatened comeuppance.

“I am going to tell my grandkids where I was when I learned the verdict in this case. That's how big of a moment it is,” Sacha Haworth, head of the nonprofit Tech Oversight Project, referring to the LA verdict. “This is Big Tech’s ‘Big Tobacco’ moment.”

The companies have vowed to appeal. Meta has accused plaintiffs in both cases of mischaracterizing its internal documents by “cherry-picking” quotes, while YouTube maintains that its platform more closely resembles a streaming platform than social media.

Meta spokesperson Liza Crenshaw said in a statement that teen mental health is “profoundly complex and cannot be linked to a single app.” And Meta President Dina Powell McCormick, speaking at an Axios Live event shortly after the verdict landed, said she “respectfully disagrees” with the ruling.

"This is really important to me and very personal,” McCormick said. “I see firsthand just how hard that the company is trying to ensure that there is not harmful content, to ensure that we are empowering parents to the best of our ability."

The companies’ vast wealth serves as a shield of sorts: Meta reported $201 billion in revenue last year, for example. And YouTube’s parent company, Alphabet, recently reported that its annual revenues exceeded $400 billion for the first time in 2025.

Eyes now on Congress

In Congress, both Democrats and Republicans say the rulings underscore the need to finally pass federal legislation that forces social media companies to further protect kids online. Similar hopes have repeatedly fallen short during the past decade, however, as divisions both within and between the parties have stymied efforts to tighten the reins on the tech giants.

“Now that Big Tech has been found liable for the harms they have pushed on our kids, it’s time for Congress to enshrine protections for American families into law,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) said in a statement following the Los Angeles verdict.

Kids’ online safety advocates, sensing a political opening, are going on the offensive in Washington. Haworth said that some activist parents who were in a Los Angeles courtroom for the verdict Wednesday had already booked flights to the nation’s capital as advocates gear up for a lobbying blitz.

State prosecutors who have led the legal crusade against social media giants, such as Torrez and California Attorney General Rob Bonta, say they’re pursuing rulings that would force companies to redesign Instagram, Facebook and other platforms with stricter safety and privacy guardrails for kids.

“Juries in Los Angeles and New Mexico have found Meta responsible for what we at CA DOJ know to be true: Meta is prioritizing profits over the safety of children and violating consumer protection laws,” Bonta said on X Wednesday. “CA DOJ looks forward to holding Meta accountable in our own upcoming August trial in the Bay Area.”

Earlier in the week before the verdicts landed, both Bonta and Torrez drew comparisons between social media and another addictive substance: tobacco.

Even California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat whom many in Silicon Valley have viewed as a powerful ally in their home state, is telling tech companies that this moment should be their “reckoning.”

“I think we have to renegotiate our contract with Big Tech,” Newsom told reporters Wednesday during a press conference in Sacramento. “Maybe they'll reconsider their own participation in the world that they've created. It's a moment of some deep accountability — and, I hope, reflection — on their part.”

Last month, the governor and likely 2028 presidential contender threw his support behind an effort from state lawmakers to restrict social media access for kids under 16.

After the LA social media verdict, lawmakers in California told POLITICO that they’re feeling emboldened to pursue new restrictions, such as impose age limits on social media — regardless of what happens next in Congress or the courts.

“Meta and YouTube, along with TikTok and Snap, have built platforms that are like casinos. They’re marketing them like they’re toys,” said Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal, the Long Beach Democrat spearheading California’s effort to restrict social media access for kids under 16. “And now, they have to pay the price.”

Globally, leaders from Spain to Malaysia are also angling to put hard age limits on social media — similar to ones that Australia pioneered when it became the first nation to ban teens under 16 from creating social media accounts late last year.

Federal lawmakers in the U.S. have also proposed legislation limiting young users' access to social media, an effort that has been reignited by Australia's landmark ban. The Kids Off Social Media Act, led by Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), would bar people 13 and under from using social media platforms and require companies to remove algorithmic-based content for users under 17 years old.

The social media trials have also reignited debates in the U.S. over Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the three-decade-old law that has shielded tech companies from being held liable for content that third-party users post on their platforms. Federal lawmakers are considering making changes to the law, or sunsetting it completely.

On the other hand, Section 230 has shown remarkable staying power so far, even after both President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden called for Congress to repeal the law.

Social media platforms “want to catch users as young as they possibly can,” Florida Republican Rep. Kat Cammack told POLITICO. “This is something we have been screaming from the rooftops about — that this is very dangerous, that there should be some stronger guardrails, and I think it's going to take a really serious look from Congress.”

Cruz told reporters after the verdict Wednesday that he wants to see kids’ safety legislation move forward, reiterating his statement to POLITICO earlier this month that he wants to advance related legislation within the coming weeks.

“It has always been my intention to move the kids’ safety package, and we're still intending to do exactly that,” Cruz added.

The post-verdict rallying cry may make it more difficult for tech industry lobbyists to beat back kids’ online safety legislation, as company operatives have done for years. But in Washington, tech companies have a powerful ally in Trump, who has worked closely with the industry since retaking office. Just this week, he appointed a number of tech titans, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, to advise him on artificial intelligence policy.

Trump’s efforts to dismantle state-level AI regulations have also complicated the collection of kids’ online safety bills working their way through Congress. Efforts to fold in language that would preempt state AI laws have sparked renewed political infighting that threatens to tank a potential package.

'Absolutely their karma'

With Congress gridlocked, states such as New York, Colorado, Utah and California have charged ahead in enacting more stringent youth social media controls. Lawmakers in those states have passed restrictions on targeted advertising to minors, established new online age-checking requirements and mandated cigarette-style health warning labels for social media platforms.

But arguably the most imminent danger for tech giants is a series of thousands of related lawsuits pending against Meta, YouTube, Snap and TikTok. Plaintiffs in those cases, including California school districts families who accuse social media giants of harming their kids, similarly blame the companies’ platform designs for exacerbating youth anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation. In some cases, parents allege social media use contributed to their child’s deaths.

The Los Angeles trial decided this week is a bellwether for many of those lawsuits. In that ruling, Meta and YouTube were only ordered to pay $6 million in total damages, but two plaintiff lawyers and a third legal expert familiar with the case said penalties will likely snowball — perhaps into the billions of dollars — as more cases go to trial.

“There’ll be a lot of math done in board rooms,” said Jayne Conroy, one of the co-counsels who represented the Los Angeles case plaintiff, a 20-year-old woman identified as K.G.M. in court documents. “This is an alarm bell for these companies.”

Adam Thierer, senior fellow for technology and innovation at the right-leaning think tank R Street Institute, predicted that even more trial attorneys will rush to file lawsuits against social media companies in the wake of the Los Angeles case in hopes of scoring a big payout. He said the ensuing legal feeding frenzy could devastate the social media sector, particularly smaller platforms.

“A lot of people think this will be a great way to punish Big Tech,” Thierer said. “But the reality is that, as we've learned from previous experiences with these sorts of things or with excessive regulation, it's usually only the very largest firms that can weather that type of litigation storm.”

Jennifer Huddleston, a senior fellow in technology policy at the libertarian Cato Institute, made a similar point, noting that smaller players could crumble if hit with a wave of knee-jerk regulation and litigation.

"Youth mental health is a complicated issue, and rushing to regulate technology does not consider the multifaceted nature of the issue or the impact such policies could have on expression, privacy, and access to information by adults as well as minors,” Huddleston said in a statement.

The cases decided this week aren’t settled yet, meaning it could be months or even years before companies cut a check. YouTube has said it will appeal the LA verdict. And Meta has vowed to appeal both of this week’s rulings, pointing in the LA trial to the jury’s non-unanimous decision.

Still, tech’s critics are brimming with confidence.

“There were hundreds of off-ramps for them,” Ava Smithing, founding partner and political director of pro-online safety nonprofit The Attention Studio, said of the tech industry. “This is absolutely their karma.”