Jury to begin deliberations in landmark social media addiction trial

Lawyers in a landmark social media addiction trial - which has seen tech giants face a jury - have made their final arguments.

After a month of hearings, 12 jurors are set to decide on whether or not social media companies should be liable for harm caused to children using their platforms. The two defendants in the case are Meta, the owner of Instagram and Facebook, and video-streaming platform YouTube, which is owned by Google.

TikTok and Snapchat each settled before the trial began. The plaintiff - a 20-year-old woman identified as KGM in documents or as Kaley by her lawyers in Los Angeles County Superior Court - claimed her early use of social media addicted her to the technology and exacerbated depression and suicidal thoughts.

The case, along with two others, has been selected as a "bellwether" trial, meaning it is being used as a test case to see how much compensation victims could be due in future litigation against social media companies. If the tech companies lose, they could be forced to change the designs of their platforms.

Mark Lanier, the lawyer representing Kaley, compared the tech giants' features to "Trojan horses.