Are social media giants like YouTube liable for addiction?
The Excerpt
USA TODAY
4.1 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 2 February 2026
⏱️ 14 minutes
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Summary
A landmark trial asks whether social media giants like Instagram and YouTube knowingly designed addictive platforms, and if they can be held legally responsible. Clay Calvert, nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, joins USA TODAY’s The Excerpt to break down the case.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | For years now, parents, children, schools, researchers, and lawmakers have raised concerns |
| 0:10.1 | about how social media affects young people, from mental health to how much time teens |
| 0:15.7 | spend online. Now those concerns are being tested in court. As part of a series of lawsuits, a jury will for the first time hear arguments that platforms like TikTok, meta, and YouTube didn't just host harmful content, but deliberately design their products in ways that made them addictive, especially for young users. |
| 0:40.3 | Hello and welcome to USA Today's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. |
| 0:43.3 | Today is Monday, February 2nd, 2026. |
| 0:46.3 | While some companies have already settled, others are pressing their case in what legal experts are calling a landmark trial. |
| 0:53.3 | Will social media be persuaded to |
| 0:56.3 | change its algorithms? For more on this, I'm joined now by Clay Calvert, non-resident senior |
| 1:01.6 | fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Thanks so much for coming on, Clay. No, thank you very |
| 1:06.8 | much for having me. I appreciate the opportunity. While thousands of social media addiction lawsuits have been filed nationwide, courts are only |
| 1:14.4 | sending a small number to trial this year, the so-called Bellwether trials. These are test |
| 1:20.0 | cases meant to guide how the remaining lawsuits are resolved. The first case is being called |
| 1:25.6 | the KGM case to maintain the plaintiff's anonymity. |
| 1:29.6 | Can you tell me about that case, Clay? |
| 1:31.6 | Sure. So KGM, as you said, is the bellwether test case, really, the first of more than |
| 1:36.9 | a thousand personal injury lawsuits that essentially alleged that social media platforms |
| 1:42.2 | were designed to hook minors to keep their eyeballs |
| 1:45.8 | on social media and that that process has caused them multiple harms. In KGM's case, |
| 1:52.2 | she's suggesting anxiety, depression, body dysmorphia, and other injuries. So her case is the |
| 1:59.1 | first one up. She's a young adult now, but she claims that when |
| 2:02.1 | she was very young, she started watching on YouTube videos and then basically later used |
| 2:08.0 | Instagram, bite dance, and the other platforms. Now, in this particular case, what's important is |
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