A landmark social media addiction trial is underway in Los Angeles Superior Court, with grieving parents facing off against Meta, Google, and their platforms in a case that could establish corporate liability for harms children experienced online.
The scene in February was stark: roughly a dozen parents crowded a dim courthouse hallway, holding lottery tickets, staring at a gray tote bag held by court staff that would decide who got a seat inside. They wore butterfly clips to honor dead children, a deliberate choice calibrated to avoid prejudicing the jury deciding whether Instagram and YouTube bear legal responsibility for those deaths.
The full piece at The Verge puts you inside that hallway and that courtroom. The procedural details, the parents' restraint under pressure, and the specific legal question of platform liability make this worth reading beyond the headline.
[READ ORIGINAL →]