Social media has been on trial in Los Angeles Superior Court although you might not know it.
There were no crowds outside the court on a recent day, clamoring for the attention of reporters, because there were hardly any reporters. In the courtroom, the space reserved for the media was half-filled. The space for the public had lots of room too.
The case, brought by a 20-year-old woman against Meta’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube for optimizing their products to her mental and physical detriment, isn’t much on social media either.
Posts about it on Facebook rarely have more than a handful of comments. On Reddit, the first post about the trial is headlined, “Why is no one talking about the social media trial?” There were just a few responses.
The O.J. Simpson trial, this is not.
This might seem surprising for a case that is in many ways about so many of us and our increasingly online behavior. But society long ago rendered a verdict on social media, which has been under such heavy criticism for nearly a decade that the talk about its harms has become close to background noise.
Three billion people use Facebook at least once a month. Three billion use Instagram. Both are controlled by one company (Meta) and one man (Mark Zuckerberg). Throw in YouTube and TikTok and a few other platforms and you have a technology that has become inextricably entwined with human life in less than a generation.
That doesn’t mean people approve of social media or even like it. They just can’t imagine being without it.
Kaley, the young plaintiff in this case, was born about the same time that YouTube launched in 2005. By the time she was 6, she was using the platform. Her life, which was full of abuse, encouraged her social media use. Whether it damaged her further or helped save her is at the heart of the trial.
Closing arguments in the case are set to commence on Thursday, with jury deliberations on a verdict soon thereafter. But even if Kaley wins, relief is probably a ways away. Meta and YouTube would likely appeal.
When Kaley first jumped into social media, Silicon Valley was ascendant. People were dazzled by its products, ambition and rhetoric. Social media got credit for sparking the Arab Spring revolutions in the early 2010s. Mr. Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder, said one mission of his company was to “bring the world closer together.” Hardly anyone warned this might in some respects be a bad idea.
Facebook, which was later renamed Meta, plunged into controversy eight years ago with a data privacy scandal. Mr. Zuckerberg was hauled before Congress. This is traditionally a warning to companies in trouble: Shape up, or else. Mr. Zuckerberg cracked the door open to change.
“My position is not that there should be no regulation,” he said. “I think the real question, as the internet becomes more important in people’s lives, is what is the right regulation, not whether there should be or not.”
At the time, Mr. Zuckerberg’s company was valued at about $500 billion. Now it is worth three times that. Usage has soared, as has revenue and profit. Despite voluminous criticism, whistle-blowers, tell-all books and a federal antitrust case, the appeal of Meta’s products — which also includes WhatsApp, Messenger and Threads — is apparently undiminished. Federal regulation seems unlikely for the moment.
YouTube, meanwhile, just passed Disney’s entertainment and sports properties to become the world’s largest media company by revenue, according to the calculations of the analyst group MoffettNathanson.
One reason for the limited coverage of Kaley’s case is an array of judicial restrictions. While this is the first of thousands of legal complaints against social media set to be heard by juries, it is not optimized to be discussed by the public.
Kaley’s identity has been shielded by the court because of her youth. She testified, drawing a moderately large crowd, but there was no video of her that could be broken down into bite-size pieces for viral posts. Judge Carolyn Kuhl’s courtroom is an isolated environment that protects the law. Even a transcript of the proceedings was not readily available.
But during testimony, the outlines of a clash nevertheless became visible. Two cherished notions of American culture and society went up against each other in the courtroom.
One was that your life and actions were being imperiled by some sort of a shadowy conspiracy — the government, rogue elements or, in this case, Silicon Valley. “This case is about two of the richest corporations in history, who have engineered addiction in children’s brains,” Mark Lanier, Kaley’s lawyer, told the court.
The other notion was that your problems are your problem, and good luck. The defendants’ core argument is that Kaley and everyone else is responsible for themselves and their own well-being. Meta said it has continuously improved Instagram to make it not only better, but safer. YouTube said it is not even a social media company.
What is addiction when it applies to digital use? Just a label, the companies said.
“I’m sure I’ve said that I’ve been addicted to a Netflix show when I binged it really late one night, but I don’t think it’s the same thing as clinical addiction,” Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, testified at Kaley’s trial.
Others took a more severe view. Nicklas Brendborg, a Danish biotech researcher and author of “Super Stimulated,” which argues human biology is being tweaked by tech and food companies, said in an interview that social media “induces compulsive behaviors in people not able to control themselves.”
“It is clear they are profiting off making addictive products,” he said of tech companies. “And it’s clear these products can have negative effects on the health of the users.”
There are many signs of trouble. The amount of time that 18- to 29-year-olds spend with friends was already plunging when the pandemic hit. It’s now less than half of what it was in 2010, which is about when smartphones became widespread.
“If you look at the social media numbers, it’s clear its critics are not winning,” Mr. Brendborg said. “Screen times are exploding in Brazil, South Africa, the Philippines. These companies are the most powerful entities on the entire globe.”
A half-century ago, Big Tobacco was almost as powerful as Big Tech. In his opening statement, Mr. Lanier compared social media to cigarettes. Smoking in America began to decline when the government said it was bad for people’s health. As society moved away from tobacco, lawsuits against cigarette makers followed.
But using the same strategy to take down social media presents problems. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shields online platforms from liability for things their users say. The current crop of court cases, including Kaley’s, try to get around this by focusing not on the platforms’ content but on their design. Infinite scrolling, for instance, is a design decision that means users never reach the end of their digital feed. Critics said that encourages what they see as addiction.
It may not be enough.
“The First Amendment and Section 230 complicate the way the plaintiffs can frame their case,” said Glenn Cohen, a professor at Harvard Law School who studies new technologies. “Even a win before the jury may not survive on appeal.”
While Kaley’s case was being heard in court, another effort to restrain social media among youth suffered a setback. A social media law that took effect in Virginia in January, which requires parental consent for those under 16 to use social media platforms for more than one hour a day, was blocked by a judge last month after tech companies filed suit through a trade organization called NetChoice.
Despite or even because of its omnipresence, social media is evolving. Eric Goldman, a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law, anticipates a future where social media is transformed into a thousand channels broadcasting at you. It would be reminiscent of cable television circa 1995: ubiquitous and a little bland.
“The whole point of social media is talking to each other,” Mr. Goldman said. “If that becomes too legally risky, it will still be media. It just won’t be social.”
All future engagement will be with a machine. On Facebook, content generated by artificial intelligence is already being prioritized over friends and family.
David Streitfeld writes about technology and the people who make it and how it affects the world around them. He is based in San Francisco.
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