Zuckerberg faces trial fallout as Meta ordered to pay $375M over kids

Considering that Congress has failed to solve nearly every problem, it is hardly surprising to learn that our lawmakers have failed to get the job done.

Just look at how long the self-inflicted chaos at the airport lasts as the parties fight.

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On Capitol Hill, there has been more than a decade of all talk and no action when it comes to tech giants that have attracted generations of kids. One reason is that these companies are incredibly wealthy and increasingly determined to use their vast amounts of cash to buy influence.

Big Tech has donated more than $764 million in the 2024 cycle.

Elon Musk, the ruler of X, contributed more than $240 million. Technology guru Marc Andreessen and his company donated $89 million. Meta, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple donated $1 million each to President Trump’s inauguration.

See, the few lawmakers who pushed legislation to help keep children safe online quickly found their bills going nowhere.

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That’s why a pair of rulings against Silicon Valley giants is such an important and potential turning point.

By filing these lawsuits, individuals are trying to do what politicians cannot do, and that is hold these megacorporations accountable.

In a case filed in New Mexico last week, a jury ordered Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, to pay $375 million for child endangerment.

The next day, a Los Angeles jury found both Meta and YouTube owner Google guilty of negligence and awarded $6 million in damages to a woman who claimed she became addicted to the sites as a child.

The figures are a rounding error for these companies. However, given that thousands of other cases are pending, the message was not given.

And companies are publicly undermined.

“I believe companies are intentionally putting addictive features into their apps because they know the more time we spend watching, the more money they will make,” Los Angeles plaintiff attorney Mark Lanier, known as KGM, told Fox Business. He also touched on the appeal of auto-playing videos and algorithmic recommendations.

“Is this the beginning of the end for social media as we know it?” asked the host of Britain’s Fourcast podcast.

A PoltiFact executive has torched Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg for announcing the end of fact-checking on social media platforms. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

I have to say this is a bit melodramatic.

In the California case, KGM, a 20-year-old woman, said features like “infinite scrolling” addicted her in her childhood, leading to depression, anxiety and thoughts of self-harm. (He started using YouTube at age 6 and Instagram at age 9, but the minimum age for both is 13.)

At that hearing, Mark Zuckerberg was asked to lift a temporary ban on beauty filters that some people on Meta had warned could be harmful to young girls.

“I felt like the evidence wasn’t clear enough to support limiting people’s testimony,” he said.

But the decisions may not be as apocalyptic as they seem right now.

For one thing, they can be overturned on appeal. It’s not hard to imagine a conservative Supreme Court making such a decision.

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The companies point to Article 230 of the 1996 communications law, which protects them from liability for what users share on sites. The latest lawsuits have instead focused on how these platforms are designed with “like” buttons and other features.

The Wall Street Journal editorial page warns against lawyers “shaking up”:

“There is no doubt that the increased use of social media and smartphones by young people over the last 15 years has coincided with increases in levels of depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses. But it is difficult, if not impossible, to prove that social media is causing any individual’s problems, let alone apportioning responsibility across platforms.”

The Journal added: “Trial lawyers will now use the L.A. decision in advertising to recruit more plaintiffs. They may even use social media platforms to advertise. Unemployed? Depressed? Spend your Friday nights scrolling? You can make big money blaming billionaires for your problems.”

The U.S. Capitol is seen at sunrise on Monday, March 9, 2026, in Washington. (Jose Luis Magana/AP Photo)

To be fair, there needs to be a level of personal responsibility here, especially among parents who set boundaries with their children.

It is also not surprising that the Congress, which is dependent on political donations, is MIA.

The technicians’ tactics remind me of Big Tobacco, which is openly marketed to young people for the purpose of hooking them for life. Frankly, no one is dying of cancer here, but depression can also be a crippling disease.

In 1998, Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds, accused of withholding information about the dangers of smoking, were under pressure to reach a $206 billion settlement with more than 40 states.

As a result, these tech companies were once admired, but over the years their behavior on children and other issues has severely damaged their reputation.

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Dina Powell McCormick, Meta’s president, told Axios: “As a mom, this is really important and very personal to me. I see firsthand how hard the company goes to make sure there’s no harmful content to make sure we’re empowering parents to the best of our ability, and that’s something I focus on every day.”

I’m sorry but that won’t cut it. I don’t doubt his sincerity. But if Meta and others had truly reformed their treatment of children, they would not be in this legal mess today.