The Internet on Trial

A Los Angeles courtroom may force Big Tech to answer what it knew about children, addiction, and design.

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For years, concerns about children, smartphones, and social media have occupied a gray zone — intuitively alarming, politically contentious, and legally elusive. That may be changing. Last week, a Los Angeles courtroom became the site of what could be the first jury trial to directly test whether major social media companies deliberately engineered their products to keep children compulsively engaged, and whether those design choices contributed to measurable psychological harm.

The case, brought on behalf of a now-19-year-old woman identified as K.G.M., is the first of about 1,000 similar lawsuits moving through state and federal courts nationwide.

I believe this trial matters — not because it promises a simple villain or an easy fix, but because it may force disclosure. Jurors are expected to review thousands of pages of internal documents, company research on children’s social media use, and testimony from senior executives at Meta and Google. For the first time, the public may get a sustained look at how the most powerful digital platforms think about young users, engagement, and profit.

This case did not arise in a vacuum.

In 2020, The Social Dilemma documented how platforms quietly deployed infinite scroll, autoplay, notifications, and recommendation algorithms to maximize time on screen. At the time, the focus was largely on adults. But the same mechanisms — arguably far more potent and deleterious — were embedded into products used daily by children.

In 2024, I reported on a related but distinct theory in Are Smartphones Starving Adolescent Brains?, examining the work of psychologist Dr. James Winston. After more than three decades treating addiction, Winston argues that focusing solely on social media is too narrow. His research points to the smartphone itself as the primary driver — a device that, when introduced during critical stages of brain development, displaces essential neurological inputs such as boredom, unstructured play, sustained attention, and real-world social learning.

Winston created the Winston Family Initiative in Technology & Adolescent Brain Development and was part of a $10 million family gift that established the National Center on Technology Use, Brain, and Psychological Development at the University of North Carolina. Notably, it is the only U.S. research center in this field that does not accept funding from technology companies.

In 2025, I explored whether smartphones should carry health advisory warnings for children, similar to other products known to pose developmental risks.

If the smartphone is the delivery system, social media apps are the fuel.

The Los Angeles case alleges that companies including Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube designed features that made their platforms extraordinarily difficult for children to disengage from — contributing, in some cases, to depression, anxiety, eating disorders, self-harm, and suicidal ideation. The plaintiffs are seeking monetary damages as well as changes to product design. TikTok and Snapchat settled shortly before trial; Meta and Google are proceeding to court.

The defense response is familiar: there is no formal clinical diagnosis of social media addiction; causation is complex; parenting matters; correlation does not equal proof. The companies also argue that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shields them from liability and that their design and content decisions are protected speech.

These are serious arguments — and they deserve to be tested.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board, in a recent piece titled A Big Social-Media Shakedown, dismisses the litigation as a trial-lawyer money grab and argues that courts are the wrong venue for resolving a complicated social problem. I write occasionally for the Journal, read it daily, and consider it an indispensable source of reporting and analysis. But on this issue, I disagree strongly.

We have seen this movie before.

In the 1990s, tobacco companies made similar claims: the science was unsettled; individual causation was unknowable; responsibility lay with consumers and parents. Litigation did not solve smoking, but it exposed internal knowledge, altered incentives, and accelerated regulatory and cultural change.

More recently, a New York jury delivered the first successful malpractice verdict tied to pediatric gender medicine — a case that I wrote may open the door to broader civil accountability where regulatory systems failed to act. That verdict was not about politics; it was about evidence, standards of care, and harm.

This social media trial belongs in that category.

No jury verdict will determine whether the internet is good or bad. But a trial can answer narrower, essential questions: What did these companies know? When did they know it? And how did that knowledge shape the products millions of children were encouraged to use daily?

If nothing else, sunlight matters.

I will be following this case — not because litigation is a cure-all, but because truth often emerges when testimony is sworn, documents are unsealed, and narratives are tested under cross-examination. When regulation lags and accountability fails, courts have a way of compelling answers that powerful industries would rather keep hidden.