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The case of the young KGM

YouTube joined Meta in appealing a court ruling that describes social networks as addictive and designed to hook minors without considering their well-being. Attorneys for the video platform filed their notice Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, days after Meta did the same.

The case revolves around a 20-year-old young woman, identified only by her initials KGM (Kaley), who claims that becoming addicted to social media since childhood aggravated her mental health problems. The jury found that both YouTube (owned by Google) and Meta acted negligently and that this was a substantial factor in the damage.

The compensation awarded was $3 million in compensatory damages and another $3 million in punitive damages. The plaintiff’s lead attorney, Mark Lanier, stated following Meta’s appeal that they hope the appeals court will “continue the careful application of the law in this case, upholding the trial court’s verdict.”

“These are standard motions for this case to move forward,” Google spokesman José Castañeda said in announcing YouTube’s appeal.

Legal arguments and platform design

During the five-week trial, YouTube maintained that it is not a social network, but rather a video-sharing and streaming platform. Both Google and Meta questioned whether the tests invaded the protections of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects technology companies from content published by third parties.

In contrast, the young woman’s lawyers focused on design features such as autoplay, which they say encourage prolonged, less intentional use.

The KGM case is unprecedented and its outcome could influence thousands of similar lawsuits against technology companies. TikTok and Snapchat, originally sued, settled out of court before trial. Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl had already denied Google and Meta’s motions for a new trial.

Lawsuit against Meta for use of artificial intelligence in layoffs

A group of 26 Meta employees filed a lawsuit alleging that the company used artificial intelligence systems to select who to fire. According to the complaint, the AI ​​disproportionately targeted people who were on medical, parental or family leave.

The plaintiffs are part of the 8,000 employees — about 10% of the payroll — that Meta announced it would lay off in May. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Oakland, California, claims the company used keystroke data, activity monitoring and performance algorithms to determine the layoffs.

“An employee who is on protected medical or family leave, or whose productivity is reduced by a disability,” cannot by design achieve those scores, the lawsuit contends.

Meta responded in a statement that the allegations “lack foundation” and that the decisions were made by people, not by an AI.

The role of protected licenses

Many of the plaintiffs took pregnancy or paternity leave, a period in which they did not work, which reduced their productivity measures. Others were on medical leave; one of them revealed a serious health condition approved by Meta’s medical provider, but a manager discouraged him from taking the leave, warning him that he would be selected for the cut.

The lawsuit alleges that Meta violated federal laws such as the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. It also invokes the “disparate impact” doctrine, which notes that seemingly neutral policies can be discriminatory if they disproportionately affect a protected group.

Although the Trump administration has deprioritized enforcement of this doctrine, plaintiffs’ attorneys argue that companies remain vulnerable to disparate impact litigation. In this case, they maintain that Meta’s algorithmic process harms women more, who disproportionately take leave for pregnancy and third-party care.

The 26 employees continue to work at Meta while the arbitration is resolved. His discharge was scheduled for July 22. The lawyers ask to maintain the status quo, since “once these withdrawals are final, the damages are irreversible,” including the loss of health coverage and leave rights.

Meta abruptly removed its generative AI tool Muse Image on Instagram. The decision came after a global wave of complaints about privacy violations.

The controversy

The function, developed by Meta Superintelligence Labs, allowed images or videos to be created and modified using faces from public accounts through mentions, without the need for prior authorization. Users found that the option was activated by default.

“This feature did not meet expectations, so it is no longer available,” Meta admitted in an official statement.

The actors union SAG-AFTRA described the implementation as “reckless” and warned about risks of non-consensual deepfakes. In a statement, they noted that “anything other than explicit and visible consent for this type of use of Instagram users’ images is unacceptable.” Actress Hannah Einbinder also joined, asking the public to review their profiles before the exhibition.

Despite the shutdown, the debate over using user data to train AI models continues. Instagram maintains an option to manually restrict that use. The steps, according to the Help Center:

• Enter your profile and open the settings menu (three horizontal lines).
• Search Share and reuse.
• Turn off the Posts and Reels toggles in the section about allowing others to use your AI-enabled content in Meta.

SAG-AFTRA celebrated Meta’s rectification and described it as a responsible action in the face of the damage that can be caused by the excessive use of graphic identities without validation filters.