President Trump does what the Democrats don’t want to do.
And let’s talk about that judgement in California finding social media companies liable for making social media addictive for kids.
Do Parents Hold Any Responsibility?
According to Perplexity:
A Los Angeles jury in a first‑of‑its‑kind California trial found that Instagram (Meta) and YouTube (Google) were negligently designed to be addictive and that this defective design harmed a young user’s mental health, making the companies legally liable for part of her injuries.
Basic facts
- The case was tried in Los Angeles County Superior Court and involved a 20‑year‑old woman from Chico, California, identified as Kaley G.M.
- Kayley started using social media at the age of six.
- She alleged that Instagram and YouTube were intentionally designed to hook young users, which led to compulsive use starting in childhood and contributed to depression, self‑harm, and other emotional distress.
- After about seven weeks of testimony and roughly 40 hours of deliberation, the jury found Meta and Google negligent in how they designed their platforms.
What the jury decided
- The jury concluded the platforms were defectively designed because features like endless scrolling, algorithmic recommendations, notifications, and other engagement tools created an unreasonable risk of addiction and harm for minors.
- They found Meta (Instagram) 70% responsible and Google (YouTube) 30% responsible for Kaley’s harm.
- Jurors awarded her about 3 million dollars in compensatory damages, with the possibility of additional punitive damages; some outlets round the total package to “more than 6 million” when including related awards or phases.
Why this case is important
- This is the first U.S. “social media addiction” lawsuit to go all the way to a jury and end with a liability finding against major platforms; thousands of similar cases are pending around the country.
- Plaintiffs’ lawyers and regulators see it as a test of whether tech companies can be held to product‑liability style standards—arguing the apps are more like dangerous products than neutral speech platforms.
- The verdict may influence settlement leverage and legal strategy in other youth‑harm suits, including large coordinated federal cases against Meta, Google, TikTok, and Snapchat.
How the companies defended themselves
- Meta and Google argued there is no formal medical diagnosis of “social media addiction,” and that many factors—family, school, underlying mental health issues—contributed to Kaley’s struggles, not just app design.
- They claimed they invest heavily in safety tools, parental controls, and content moderation, and that they never intended to harm children.
- They also point out that the parents should hold some responsibility to what their children are watching. Television isn’t held responsible when a child watches something they shouldn’t.
- They claimed that they are protected by section 230 which states they are a platform, not a publication.
- The social media content is not created by the company, but by its users. It is up to the user to access social media to pick what they see.
- YouTube argued that they are not a social media company.
- Meta has said it “respectfully disagrees” with the verdict and is considering its legal options, signaling an appeal.
How this fits into the bigger picture
- The verdict came as other juries and courts are starting to confront similar issues, including a New Mexico jury that recently hit Meta with a large verdict over Instagram and child exploitation and a Delaware ruling about whether insurers must cover social‑media‑harm claims.
- Lawmakers at both the state and federal level have been pushing age‑verification rules, design‑duty laws, and other regulations targeting youth protections on social media, and this verdict is likely to be cited in those debates.
Some things:
- This lawsuit should be thrown out.
- This is a slippery slope. This will extend beyond children and apply to adults.
- This also extends with the subjective, pseudo-science of psychology. There really is no way to tell who was causing her mental illness.
- If someone should be of age, there should be a law making it mandatory that a user must be 18. This is going to open an entire flood of lawsuits. This seems to be a money grab.
- I also feel that this is more of a parental problem, like drug abuse. Why aren’t the parents being held responsible?
- But I don’t think social media is completely innocent.
- Social media does use processes that are addictive.
- Social media has been acting like a publisher not a platform. They have banned certain content that is considered “offensive” including conservative political speech, political figures, and information THEY don’t like. They said they have done this.
- COVID information.
- Abortion information.
- They banned conservative commentators such as Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh.
- They banned politicians such a President Trump.
- Social media did know for a very long time that their content was no good for children. They made half-hearted attempts to limit access to children.
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/explain-the-social-media-lawsu-R_XUlN1iROSJRYIHYm.i2A
It Figures
According to the New York Post:
In 2022, California Gov. Gavin Newsom broke ground on the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing (WAWC), a project featuring an overpass for animals atop ten lanes of the 101 Freeway in Southern California.
At the ceremony, Newsom boasted that the state had committed $54 million. He promised to “complete the job within another $10 million,” before seeming to hedge on whether that final sum would do the trick.
Officials projected a 2025 completion date for the overpass, and estimated that the entire project — which includes the bridge and other ancillary developments — would cost $92 million, some of it coming from private philanthropists.
Nearly four years after the ceremony, the bridge is past due and the project some $21 million over budget. What was supposed to be the world’s largest wildlife crossing has become a jobs program for environmentalists, with taxpayers on the hook for what WAWC leader Beth Pratt told us is an overpass “for everything from monarch butterflies to mountain lions.”
Pratt, a cougar-sweater-wearing environmental activist who serves on WAWC’s Partner Leadership Team, is the program’s public face. She is also a regional executive director of the national Wildlife Federation. In 2021, the group received a $25 million grant from “Wallis Annenberg and the Annenberg Foundation” for the bridge that bears the late philanthropist’s name.
That money apparently was not enough. This past January, donning a hard hat and a “#SAVELACOUGARS” jersey, Pratt announced a possible $21 million overage. She effectively blamed President Trump, attributing the multimillion-dollar overrun to “tariffs, inflation, [and] labor problems.”
“There’s no boondoggle,” she said. “Given the times we’re living in,” a potential $21 million overage is “not that bad.”
In response to our request for comment on the cost increases, Pratt argued that they were consistent with those faced by other construction projects.
Within days of Pratt’s announcement, the California Transportation Commission funneled another $18.8 million to the project, well exceeding the governor’s $10 million cap. The project’s total price tag now reaches about $114 million, reportedly including some $77 million in state funds. Newsom’s office pointed us to a press release in response to our request for comment.
Why has a project primarily consisting of a bridge for animals cost over $100 million? One reason is that Newsom and WAWC’s philanthropic supporters apparently don’t mind it becoming a patronage program.As the WAWC-endorsing Wildlife Crossing Fund notes, citing the California Department of Transportation’s estimate, “for every $1 billion spent” on wildlife crossings, “13,000 jobs are created.”
A group of experts apparently adds to the operation’s expense. A fungi whiz, Pratt says, worked as a WAWC habitat designer, periodically scrutinizing root samples under a microscope. A contracted soil scientist said his process involves assessing local dirt to “rebuild it … as close to nature as possible.”
One reason California supposedly needs this overpass is to ensure the safety and genetic diversity of mountain lions in the Santa Monica Mountains, where only about a dozen non-kitten cougars live at any given time.
While bridge proponents claim that the local mountain lion population could otherwise face extinction, researchers suggest the bridge is not the only solution to ensure their survival.
According to a 2016 paper published by the Royal Society, the mountain lion population living in and around the Santa Monica Mountains is “demographically vigorous.” Still, the paper argues, the population could face “rapid extinction” if it becomes less genetically diverse.
While bridge proponents have cited this study, the researchers say adding just one new mountain lion to the population per generation was apparently sufficient to reduce extinction risk. If Newsom and the philanthropists were really interested in protecting these lions, $114 million could likely fund translocations for thousands of years.
At the groundbreaking ceremony, Newsom envisioned WAWC as a catalyst for the construction of wildlife crossings across the state. California, he boasted, set aside $105 million “to replicate projects like this all up and down the state.” Pratt reportedly thinks “hundreds more crossings are needed.”
Californians can’t afford it. The Newsom administration projects a $2.9 billion budget deficit for 2026–2027. The state legislature’s nonpartisan fiscal advisor has published steeper estimates, and claimed the deficit could rise to $35 billion in coming years.
If the state wants to fund a nine-figure overpass project for animals, it should turn to the Annenberg Foundation, which holds $1.27 billion in net assets. (The foundation did not respond to our request for comment.)
California taxpayers shouldn’t have to spend another cent. Gavin Newsom, unfortunately, seems committed to bankrolling what for now is a multimillion-dollar bridge to nowhere.