A California jury on Wednesday found that Meta and Google were to blame for the depression and anxiety of a woman who compulsively used social media as a small child, awarding her $6 million in a rare verdict holding Silicon Valley accountable for its role in fueling a youth mental health crisis.
The jurors concluded that Meta and Google should pay the woman $3 million in compensatory damages and an additional $3 million in punitive damages, with Meta on the hook for 70% of that amount.
While the financial punishment is miniscule for companies each worth trillions of dollars, the decision is still consequential. It represents the first time a jury has found that social media apps should be treated as defective products for being engineered to exploit the developing brains of kids and teenagers.
The verdict validated the plaintiff's lawyers' approach of shifting the legal target; instead of focusing on the content people see on social media, the case put the spotlight on how social media services were designed. Meta's apps, including Instagram, and Google's YouTube, the jury concluded, were deliberately built to be addictive and the companies' executives knew this and failed to protect their youngest users.




Israel launched another wave of strikes across Iran on Tuesday, March 24, escalating its military campaign after Defence Minister Israel Katz said operations would continue “with full force.”
A Russian drone strike hit central Lviv on Tuesday, March 24, injuring at least two people and damaging residential buildings, local officials said.
A New Mexico jury determined Tuesday that Meta knowingly harmed children's mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its social media platforms, a verdict that signals a changing tide against tech companies and the government's willingness to crack down.
A Georgia judge set a $1 bond for a woman facing murder charges tied to allegations she used abortion pills to end a pregnancy, potentially paving the way for a possible reduction or dismissal of charges.





























