For the first time, a court has found that the companies behind Instagram and YouTube can be to blame for the mental health harm caused by their addictive algorithm design.
Meta and Google were held liable in a landmark US legal case this week that found the algorithms behind the most popular social media platforms are designed to be addictive to children and teenagers. A California jury ruled Meta’s platforms and Google’s YouTube had contributed to the depression and anxiety of a woman who had compulsively used social media as a child, awarding her $6 million in damages.
The jury in Los Angeles found that Meta and YouTube were negligent in the design of their platforms, and that this negligence was a substantial factor in causing harm to the plaintiff. The verdict doesn’t mandate the companies to change their products, but, with the first-of-its-kind case likely to inform thousands of similar lawsuits being brought to courts in the US, it’s not a decision that’s easy to ignore. The news could spell big changes for how social media companies build algorithms, and how brands interact with customers on the platforms that make up a large part of their marketing distribution. However, both companies have said they intend to appeal the decision. “This verdict puts pressure on platforms to fundamentally redesign the features that drive compulsive use,” says Dr. Quynh Hoang, lecturer in marketing and consumption at the University of Leicester. “Whether courts, regulators, or legislators will push hard enough to make that happen remains to be seen. But for the first time, the legal and cultural ground has genuinely shifted.' Experts say any change to Instagram and YouTube’s design will impact how fashion and beauty brands approach marketing on the platforms, from the types of marketing they create to the influencers they partner with and crucially how they reach young audiences. How will platforms react? Given that the LA jury’s verdict focused on mental health harm inflicted on a plaintiff when she was a child, social media platforms will now be under intense scrutiny around how they protect younger users. The court ordered Meta to pay 70% of the $6 million in damages, with Google paying the remaining 30%. Shermin Lakha, founder of law firm Lvlup Legal and Tiger Tiger Creative Agency, points out that, unlike YouTube, Meta does not currently include the option to mark content as child-friendly, but will now be under pressure to do so. “Meta might have to come out with something similar to YouTube, where the creator says whether their content is made for kids or not,” she says, adding that age restrictions on content will naturally mean that content designed for adults will have smaller potential reach. “Of course, it would limit the audience.” Sandra Matz, an assistant professor at Columbia Business School, questions whether the courts alone will be enough to make social media companies change their ways, but says high-profile cases could lead to regulatory changes. “Often, it is not actually through the lawsuits, but through policymakers feeling the public pressure,” she tells Vogue. “Autoplay, for example, where the moment that your video stops the next one is already queued up, could be made illegal.” Rethinking influencer marketing strategies Increased scrutiny on how social media platforms can harm mental health, and potential changes to algorithms as a result, could reshape how brands approach influencer marketing. It’s no secret that influencer culture has a big part to play in how social media use can affect mental health: a 2025 study found that 67% of surveyed teens felt insecure after viewing influencer content. At the same time, brands have been steadily increasing their influencer marketing spend over the last few years. Influencer marketing platform Creator IQ recently found that two-thirds of brands have been funding this increase by cutting into paid media budgets. But experts say the reduced control brands have over influencer outputs may cause them to pull back from partnering with certain personalities. In the first instance, this greater awareness of social media’s potential harm will push brands to steer even further away from influencers who are seen to be part of the problem. This would include “anyone who promotes things like body image standards that create anxiety, because people compare themselves to others”, says Melika Hashemi, a digital marketing director working with WPP. “More awareness of this creates a segue to weed out the good influencers from the bad, and it opens the door for the good influencers to stand out,” she adds. Brands will also likely begin penning stricter contracts with influencers, to minimize the risk of chasing engagement at any cost. “The way that a lot of brand deals work is that the creator will get brand guidelines, of how and what to say. The creator has a responsibility to make sure that the content performs. So they’ll do things that have a hook, and a lot of the time that’s something controversial,” says Lakha. “Brands are going to want to tighten that up, because no one wants to get hit with a lawsuit.” Matz hopes that, if platforms are compelled to redesign algorithms to be less optimized for emotional engagement, these kinds of risks could be mitigated by those encouraging less polemic influencer content. “Right now, incentivized to play into these algorithms, to put something out there that is more extreme and emotional,” she says. “It might mean that influencers could potentially shift the style of the language they use.” Quality over quantity Lakha adds that more stringent age restrictions could create extra liability for brands, by ensuring that content marked “child-safe” isn’t harmful. This could mean more caution around categories potentially linked to mental health issues like body dysmorphia. “Brands are going to be on high alert with the messaging that they’re putting out,” Lakha says. “If it’s something about body image or beauty, for example if it is a beauty brand and they’re using characters from children’s TV shows in their marketing, the messaging should have more control in the storytelling.” If platforms do rein in algorithms and add further guardrails — leading to less compulsive user behavior and less time spent on platforms — it would likely impact brands by increasing the cost of social ads. Matz explains that this is because the same number of companies would be competing for a smaller number of advertising slots, due to fewer user hours spent on the app. “If you think about this as a bidding war, they have 500 companies, and if there are fewer slots, you would just see the prices going up,” she says. If Instagram and YouTube ads get more expensive, their value could also rise. “The question is whether the returns go up,” says Matz. “Currently, the returns on social ads are really bad in terms of click-through and conversion rates. It could be that the returns actually go up, because we see fewer, so then it might still be worth paying that extra price.” For the first time in social media’s recent history, this could mean less is more.
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