The Jury Has Spoken on Big Tech. Now It’s US Lawmakers’ Turn.

This week, two juries in two different states delivered a message Silicon Valley can no longer ignore: the era of accountability for social media’s harms to young users has arrived. But the most consequential outcome of these trials may not be the damages awarded. It may be the information forced into the public record, and what that evidence now makes possible.

On Wednesday, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and YouTube liable for the mental health harms suffered by a young woman who began using the platforms as a child. The jury awarded her $6 million in damages after finding that both companies acted with malice and were negligible in the design of their platforms.

A day earlier, a New Mexico jury ordered Meta to pay $375 million for violating the state’s consumer protection laws by misleading users about the safety of its platforms and failing to protect children from predators.