Meta and YouTube lose in a landmark trial
The Global Story
BBC
3.8 • 666 Ratings
🗓️ 30 March 2026
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In a bellwether case, a jury in Los Angeles found on Wednesday that Meta and YouTube are responsible for a young woman’s childhood addiction to social media, and intentionally built addictive platforms that harmed her health.
The companies say they intend to appeal against the verdict, which could set a legal precedent and have far-reaching consequences.
Marianna Spring, the BBC’s social media investigations correspondent, has spent the past year speaking to whistleblowers and insiders from social media companies, revealing how algorithms designed to connect people have been helping to tear them apart. We ask if this week’s verdict is just the start of something much bigger.
The BBC is throwing open the doors to Maida Vale Studios on Saturday 25 April for Castfest, a one-day celebration bringing its biggest news podcasts directly to fans. Apply for Castfest tickets below.
Producer: Valerio Esposito and Cat Farnsworth Sopund engineer: Travis Evans Senior news editor: China Collins
(Photo: Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg leaves the court at the case accusing Meta and Google's YouTube of harming kids' mental health through addictive platforms, 18 February, 2026. Credit: Mike Blake/Reuters)
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.9 | A jury in Los Angeles has said that META and YouTube are responsible for a young woman's childhood addiction to social media. |
| 0:14.1 | Kaylee, the plaintiff, has been awarded $6 million in damages. |
| 0:18.6 | It's a small payout compared to the sheer billions these tech giants |
| 0:22.5 | make, but it could open the floodgates to hundreds of other cases making their way through |
| 0:27.9 | the courts. Now, at the heart of this is the question of whether these companies are intentionally |
| 0:33.2 | building these apps to be addictive. As a question, our colleague, Mariana Spring, |
| 0:38.4 | the BBC's social media investigations correspondent, |
| 0:41.3 | has been digging into for more than a year. |
| 0:44.5 | Coming up, we talked to Mariana about her exclusive interviews |
| 0:48.4 | with whistleblowers from inside the tech giants. |
| 0:52.0 | People who told her that the companies took risks with user safety |
| 0:55.9 | when they decided to allow more harmful content on people's feeds. |
| 1:00.1 | Allegations the companies deny. |
| 1:02.3 | From the BBC, I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. |
| 1:05.8 | And I'm Tristan Redmond in London. |
| 1:08.5 | And today on The Global Story, |
| 1:10.6 | could social media companies be forced to change their |
| 1:14.3 | algorithms? |
| 1:22.8 | My name is Mariana Spring and I'm the BBC's social media investigations correspondent. |
| 1:27.9 | Great to have you back with this, Mariana. |
| 1:29.5 | Thanks for having me. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.