In California this week a 20-year-old woman was awarded a total of US$6 million against tech giants Meta and Google because of the dangerous addictive toxicity of their social media platforms and the harm caused to young children.

The money is a drop in the bucket for the two companies. Last year, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, exceeded annual revenue of US$400 billion for the first time while Meta achieved a record annual revenue of US$200 billion.

The companies have vowed to fight the court ruling and the case, along with many others in the pipeline, which could drag on for years and years. Plus, Big Tech is so entrenched in our lives, in the corporate world, in politics and the whole of society, that it is unlikely to want to change willingly.

But the body of evidence appears to show, and courts are now finding, that these apps are dangerous to young people, harming their mental health, designed to be addictive and putting them at risk of predators.

It amounts to a challenge to those companies who voluntarily choose to associate themselves with a product that has been found to be dangerous to kids throughout the planet.

The power of advertising lies not just in persuading the public. Companies who choose Meta and Google to advertise now risk reputational harm by associating with them. Advertisers have it within their power to take their business elsewhere.

Principled advertisers, who would be loath to be associated with harming children, have the responsibility to protect their own brands, and in the process perhaps bring about change. Big Tech will not easily ignore the voice of advertisers.

Ads and subscriptions alone for Google’s YouTube generated revenue of US$60 billion in 2025. Meta’s Instagram has three billion users and is the main driver of the company’s growth with advertising on the platform expected to reach about US$42.5 billion in 2026.

It was YouTube and Instagram that were the focus of the landmark trial in Los Angeles that concluded last week.

A jury found that the platforms were built deliberately to be addictive and that Meta and Google executives failed to protect children from harm.

The woman in the case, known only as Kaley, said she became hooked on Instagram and YouTube as a child and as a result her mental health suffered, leading to depression, body dysmorphia and suicidal thoughts.

The jurors were damning in their verdict. They found Meta and Google were negligent in designing their platforms. The companies knew they could have adverse effects on minors; they failed to warn of the dangers, and they acted with “malice, oppression or fraud.”

The case focused not on the content shown on the platforms but on the design features that made them addictive. Mark Lanier, the lawyer for Kaley, pointed to infinity scrolling, beauty filters, autoplay features and push notifications as being responsible for causing harm.

“This jury saw exactly what we presented from the very first day of trial: that these companies built digital spaces designed to negatively influence the brains of children, and they did it on purpose,” said Lanier, in a statement.

“The evidence showed that Meta and YouTube knew their platforms were hooking children and harming their mental health, and instead of fixing the problem they kept developing features to maximize the time kids spent on their apps. Now a jury has told them that is not acceptable, and you are being held accountable.”

Meta and Google said they will appeal the verdict.

Google spokesman José Castañeda said, “This case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site.”

Teen mental health is “profoundly complex and cannot be linked to a single app,” said Meta.

In a separate New Mexico trial last week, Meta was ordered to pay US$375 million in damages after a jury found the company liable for endangering children by making them vulnerable to sexual predators.

But the damage to the reputation of these tech titans isn’t just these two cases, there are thousands of similar cases making their way through the law courts. Daryl Lim, a law professor at Pennsylvania State University, said, “Bellwether trials like this one serve as signals about how juries respond to specific theories of harm.”

The backlash against Big Tech is being compared to the battle against Big Tobacco. For decades, tobacco companies fought long and hard against the increasing and overwhelming evidence that tobacco was linked to cancer.

It is possible that Big Tech could fight an equally long, desperate and arduous battle against changing its platforms. Just how many children would be harmed if that battle lasted a decade is incalculable.

In his closing argument to the jury, Lanier said, “I don’t naysay the opportunity to make money. But when you’re making money off of kids, you have to do it responsibly.”

That’s the question now faced by the advertisers who have made big tech so successful.

National Post