Opening arguments have begun in a US trial accusing social media companies of designing products to addict children, with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and YouTube chief Neal Mohan among US social media executives expected to testify, local media reported.
The trial, delayed from late January due to a defense lawyer's illness, features a jury of six women and six men, with proceedings potentially running through March, reported Bloomberg.
Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, the photo and video sharing platform owned by US social media company Meta, is expected to take the stand during the first week before Zuckerberg, who will testify in Los Angeles as early as next week, Bloomberg said.
The personal injury suit, brought by the Social Media Victims Law Center in Seattle, centres on a 20-year-old California woman who claimed that over a decade of social media addiction caused her anxiety, depression, and body dysmorphia, the outlet reported.
Meta lawyers plan to reject correlations between social media and teen mental health issues while highlighting positive impacts, according to members of the company's legal team cited by Bloomberg.
Meta said in a January blog post that blaming social media companies alone for teen mental health struggles "oversimplifies a serious issue," calling lawsuit claims inaccurate.
Youth mental health crisis
The case will be the first in a slew of cases beginning this year that seek to hold social media companies responsible for harming children's mental well-being. A federal bellwether trial beginning in June in Oakland, California, will be the first to represent school districts that have sued social media platforms over harms to children.
In addition, more than 40 state attorneys general have filed lawsuits against Meta, claiming it is harming young people and contributing to the youth mental health crisis by deliberately designing features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children to its platforms.
The majority of cases filed their lawsuits in federal court, but some sued in their respective states.
TikTok also faces similar lawsuits in more than a dozen states.
This case came at a time when various countries around the world are imposing restrictions and bans on social media use by minors, with many research studies showing a link between social media use and mental health issues among minors.
Last year, a US federal jury ordered Google to pay about $425 million for gathering information from smartphone app use, even when people opted for privacy settings.
The same day, France's data protection authority fined the search giant 325 million euros for failing to respect the law on internet cookies.
