Meta’s defeat in a landmark social media trial must be the turning point for big tech, forcing them to curb addictive features, Molly Russell’s father has said.
Iain Russell, whose daughter Molly took her own life after viewing harmful images on Instagram, said the judgment should be a “watershed moment” for US tech giants to start taking responsibility for their effect on users’ lives.
He told The Telegraph: “The last 24 hours, I hope, we will be able to look back on as a pivot point for meaningful change in preventing addiction and harm to young people.”
A jury in Los Angeles on Wednesday found Instagram-owner Meta and YouTube-owner Google liable for a 20-year-old woman’s social media addiction.
The tech giants were ordered to pay $6m (£4.5m) in damages to the woman over claims that their apps “rewired” how children “think, feel and behave”.
Mr Russell’s daughter died after viewing more than 2,000 images of depression, self-harm and suicide on social media, a coroner found in 2022.
He said: “We had wished the end of Molly’s inquest to be a watershed moment. But so little has changed in the eight years.
“The case in California has unequivocally reopened that debate in terms of the addictive design of the platforms.”
Mr Russell said Sir Keir Starmer should now force firms to restrict addictive features on apps.
“We know the platforms are not going to do that by themselves. It will come down to regulation to make that happen. For it to be a watershed moment that saves lives, Sir Keir Starmer needs to do something,” he said.
The UK has been exploring limits, including barring under-16s from social media apps or digital curfews. Officials have been considering whether addictive features that encourage “doom-scrolling” should be barred for children.
The value of Mark Zuckerberg’s tech empire fell by $100bn on Thursday as investors prepare for potentially billions of dollars in further litigation following the judgment.
In the US trial, a California jury found in favour of the woman who said she had started using YouTube aged six and Instagram aged nine.
She claimed the negligence of the tech giants was to blame for her addiction to social media, which led to mental health problems including social phobia, body dysmorphic disorder and self-harm.
Mr Zuckerberg’s company faces a series of legal battles, likely to last years, against families, schools and US states.
Meta is now bracing for tens of billions of dollars in potential damages after its defeat in a landmark social media addiction trial.
