Families Find Hope as Tech Giants Lose Major Youth Safety Court Cases

Two separate juries ruled against Meta this week, finding the social media company failed to adequately protect young users from harm. Parents who have lost children to online dangers say the verdicts represent a long-overdue reckoning with tech companies that prioritize profits over safety.

At just 16 years old, Walker Montgomery received a message on Instagram from what appeared to be a teenage girl who lured him into online sexual activity.

Hours later, the Mississippi teenager had taken his own life after falling victim to a sextortion scam.

EDITOR’S NOTE — This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988.

Brian Montgomery will never recover from his son’s loss, but he joined other grieving parents in celebrating this week after Meta suffered defeats in two separate court cases where juries determined the company’s platforms ensnare young people without regard for their safety.

Montgomery views these rulings as long-overdue accountability.

“We’re talking about the most financially sound business that the planet has ever known. This will set an expectation,” Montgomery stated Wednesday following jury decisions in New Mexico and Los Angeles that found social media companies had failed in their duty to protect minors.

His sentiment is shared by numerous other parents who believe inadequate protections have left children vulnerable to harm.

Tuesday brought the initial victory when New Mexico jurors supported state attorneys who contended Meta — the parent company of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp — placed profit margins ahead of user safety, resulting in a $375 million financial penalty.

A day later, a separate Los Angeles jury determined that both Meta and Google’s YouTube created their services to deliberately engage young people without considering potential harm to their wellbeing. Both companies released statements indicating they would review their legal alternatives, including possible appeals.

These decisions reflect a changing tide in how the public views social media corporations and their obligation to safeguard minors using their services.

Social media giants have long challenged claims that their platforms damage children’s psychological health through intentional features that create addiction while failing to shield users from predators and harmful material. Multiple state and federal lawsuits are proceeding to trial this year, and despite varying specifics, all aim to establish corporate accountability for platform activities.

Montgomery, who was not involved as a plaintiff in either lawsuit, believes legislative action must follow. “They’ve proven,” he said regarding the social media sector, “that they can’t regulate themselves.”

He described his son as an athletic outdoors enthusiast who went to sleep content before encountering a fraudster operating from Nigeria.

“We didn’t get to see him the next morning,” said the farmer and crop insurance agent, with a photograph from his son’s duck hunting expedition just months before his December 1, 2022 death visible on his office desk.

He now experiences conflicting feelings of hope and grief, recognizing that the progress he witnesses arrives too late for his family. “Walker’s not coming back,” he acknowledged.

In Dedham, Massachusetts, near Boston, Deb Schmill deeply comprehends the complicated emotions these legal victories generate. Her daughter Becca Schmill was 18 in September 2020 when she died from fentanyl poisoning after purchasing drugs through a social media site.

“That’s the painful part of all of this,” explained Schmill, who also was not a plaintiff in these cases. “If this could have been done five years ago, 10 years ago. Things would be so different.”

Her daughter’s fatal overdose occurred after the teenager was sexually assaulted by an online contact and subsequently became targeted by revenge pornography.

“She was a wonderful child, but she was just tortured,” her mother recalled.

Similar to Montgomery, Schmill has supported legislation designed to shield children from social media, gaming websites, and other digital platform dangers. The proposed Kids Online Safety Act received Senate approval two years ago but has not advanced through the House of Representatives.

Given likely appeals and potential settlement negotiations, these cases against social media corporations may require years to reach final resolution. Unlike regulatory approaches in Europe and Australia, technology oversight in America progresses extremely slowly.

“We know, the parents know better than anyone that when we are unable to hold the social media companies accountable, children die,” she emphasized. “And it’s just absurd that this is happening in our country.”

Even parents who haven’t experienced such devastating losses are becoming increasingly cautious. Charles Halley, dropping his son at an Alameda, California school, explained why his fifth-grade student doesn’t own a phone due to concerns about social media’s impact on children.

“The divisiveness, the beauty standard, consumerism, just everything that’s wrong with society kind of packaged up and marketed to kids,” he observed.

He noted that parents are becoming frustrated and organizing efforts to reduce these dangers, though he questions whether complete elimination is possible.

“People my age, younger, older, have seen what social media has done to our behavior, the way we deal with each other,” he said, referencing accidents caused by individuals unable to disconnect from their devices. “And I would just assume that the effect is magnified for kids whose brains are still developing, and it’s just a shame to see them exposed that way.

“That’s why I’m keeping my kid off social media.”