{"id":22523,"date":"2026-03-30T02:37:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T00:37:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/30\/how-metas-victim-blaming-failed-to-sway-jurors-in-landmark-social-media-addiction-trial\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T02:37:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T00:37:21","slug":"how-metas-victim-blaming-failed-to-sway-jurors-in-landmark-social-media-addiction-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/30\/how-metas-victim-blaming-failed-to-sway-jurors-in-landmark-social-media-addiction-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"How Meta\u2019s victim-blaming failed to sway jurors in landmark social media addiction trial"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Aggressive strategy and loss in the trial highlight a problem for tech firms: a widespread distrust of social media companies<\/p>\n<p>When <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/meta\">Meta<\/a>, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, sought to defend itself in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/media\/2026\/mar\/25\/jury-verdict-us-first-social-media-addiction-trial-meta-youtube\">landmark social media addiction lawsuit<\/a> alleging its products caused personal injury to a young user, it went on the offensive. The mental health problems that the 20-year-old known as KGM suffered since she was a child were not the result of exposure to harm on Instagram, Meta\u2019s lawyers and public relations team argued, but instead linked to her mother\u2019s parenting and her offline social problems.<\/p>\n<p>In a bench memo filed before the trial began, lawyers for Meta quoted excerpts from KGM\u2019s teenage text messages, personal writings and social media posts complaining about her mother. They combed through therapy notes and called on doctors to testify to examples of personal conflict. Throughout the proceedings, Meta\u2019s communications team sent reporters repeated updates from the trial and quotes from testimony that highlighted her familial issues. Far from causing harm, they alleged that Instagram offered a helpful respite from the real world.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2026\/mar\/29\/meta-loss-social-media-addiction-trial\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><br \/>\n<img src=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/487190ac6b2cea4f0eefa0e8aa7cf1d980b45ab7\/327_0_2459_1968\/master\/2459.jpg?width=140&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=2a6a0202eb6360aeb1451bc48703cc09\" title=\"How Meta\u2019s victim-blaming failed to sway jurors in landmark social media addiction trial\" \/>Aggressive strategy and loss in the trial highlight a problem for tech firms: a widespread distrust of social media companies<br \/>\nWhen Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, sought to defend itself in the landmark social media addiction lawsuit alleging its products caused personal injury to a young user, it went on the offensive. The mental health problems that the 20-year-old known as KGM suffered since she was a child were not the result of exposure to harm on Instagram, Meta\u2019s lawyers and public relations team argued, but instead linked to her mother\u2019s parenting and her offline social problems.<br \/>\nIn a bench memo filed before the trial began, lawyers for Meta quoted excerpts from KGM\u2019s teenage text messages, personal writings and social media posts complaining about her mother. They combed through therapy notes and called on doctors to testify to examples of personal conflict. Throughout the proceedings, Meta\u2019s communications team sent reporters repeated updates from the trial and quotes from testimony that highlighted her familial issues. Far from causing harm, they alleged that Instagram offered a helpful respite from the real world. Continue reading&#8230;Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Aggressive strategy and loss in the trial highlight a problem for tech firms: a widespread distrust of social media companies When Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, sought to defend itself in the landmark social media addiction lawsuit alleging its products caused personal injury to a young user, it went on the offensive. &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/30\/how-metas-victim-blaming-failed-to-sway-jurors-in-landmark-social-media-addiction-trial\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">How Meta\u2019s victim-blaming failed to sway jurors in landmark social media addiction trial<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":22524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22523"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}