Article written by Bozena Smith, March 21 2026

  If you are familiar with Ray Bradbury’s dystopia Fahrenheit 451, you may remember the book’s concept of "The Parlor walls”, floor to ceiling immersive 3D screens that make up the general living space area. In the book, the characters' lives are preoccupied by the meaningless content projected on the screens 24/7 by the government. The content itself is a loud slurry of color and sound, such a sensory overwhelm as to wash out the cognitive dexterity of all the society's members who are inundated by it, and who are trained to consider it of high value. 

10th grade book report aside, this concept gives you a pretty good idea of how 20 year old Kelsey (or “KGM”) views the nature of the internet today, and the intentionality behind its addictive qualities. This issue is the one that Kelsey took to the Los Angeles County Superior Court in early 2026, and a great legal debate that, now stirred, cannot be put to bed too soon. 

Background on Kelesy’s personal history is an important part of understanding her issue with the systems that social media platforms operate under. Kelesy was a young child in the early 2000s, a period of time in which social media startups, that would soon grow to incredible heights of power, were first becoming important in people’s social engagement. Having access to a phone early on in life, Kelesy draws on her own experience of childhood in the evolving social media landscape and its impact on her as she grew, contributing, as she claims, to depression, anxiety, and body dysmorphia, causing her to withdraw from her family. 

Growing up in a world where technology represented both a manufactured sense of escapism, as well as a self-isolating cave, had amounted to such misery that Kelesy, the now adult, was driven to action. Kelsey decided to take social media companies - specifically Meta (Instagram) and Google (YouTube) - to trial on the grounds that their platforms are designed to manipulate human biology, and debilitate the mental health of youths in doing so. Thus marks the first social media addiction trial, termed a "landmark trial."

Kelesy’s case reached a Los Angeles superior court in February 2026, and Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg was called upon to testify against thousands of cases brought to the jury by families, state prosecutors, and school districts spanning the US. 

The trial was mapped out to last a duration of roughly six-eight weeks, with Zuckerberg testifying on Wednesday, February 18.

The Prosecution: 

Kelsesy’s argument is rooted in criticism of the system and its methods, rather than the content itself or the people creating it. “They made me give up a lot of hobbies and old interests, and they prevented me from making friends ... [and] caused me to compare myself to other people,” she told jurors in Los Angeles County Superior Court. “I just felt like I wanted to be on it all the time,” she said. “If I wasn’t on it, I was going to miss out on something.” (NBC news)

Two significant legislative orders complicate prosecuting social media platforms and require plaintiffs to navigate through hoops to build an argument that is acknowledged as legitimate by courts: these laws are The First Amendment and Section 230. 

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act ensures that the companies themselves cannot be considered at fault for the actions of their online users. To dodge the Act, Kelesy’s legal team has had to construct the case based on evidence to companies intentionally designing their products to encourage a state of reliance similar to addiction in order to up profit. K.G.M.’s lawyer went so far as to describe them as  “digital casinos”. 

A case is made specifically for the harm social media platforms such as Instagram cause children, and how ruthlessly minors are targeted with marketing given corporate understanding of the impressionability of their developmental stage. Kelesy’s lawyer, Mark Lanier, claimed in court that the government and Silicon Valley have aimed to and are successfully engineering addiction in children’s brains for profit.

“The cases have drawn comparisons to those against Big Tobacco in the 1990s, when companies like Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds was accused of hiding information about the harms of cigarettes.”(NYTimes) 

The Defence: 

There are several central arguments posed in opposition to the above claims. The first one being that online platforms are not solely responsible for downgrades of Kelseys’ mental health. Kelsey, like all individuals, is subject to external factors that contribute to overall wellbeing, the most prominent example being her home life, which was reportedly conflicted throughout her adolescence. This information is disputed by Kelsey though, supported by others in her life. Meta argued that Keslesy’s childhood environment played just as large a role in her mental state as instagram. 

“On Wednesday, Victoria Burke, who was K.G.M.’s therapist when she was 13, testified that she doesn’t think social media was the sole driver of her former client’s mental health issues but that she does suspect it played a part. ‘I believe it was a contributing factor, not a causation factor,’ she said. (NBC news)”

The second argument made in the companies’ favor was to emphasize the difference between the idea of clinical addiction vs. “misuse” of media, and why the distinction is important. “Addiction” being the language used by the prosecutor is considered a lofty, contrived, and somewhat manipulated title in the opinion of the companies. “‘I’m sure I’ve said that I’ve been addicted to a Netflix show when I bing’d it really late one night, but I don’t think it’s the same thing as clinical addiction,’ Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, testified at Kelesy’s trial. (The Economic Times)” Similarly, the validity of claiming social media acted comparable to drugs was brought into discussion. 

Where Does The Issue Go From Here?:

The trials processing the contention between AI and mental health are not yet resolved, and certainly there are more to come, with the expected nine to be fulfilled in Los Angeles as litigation proceeds against Meta and Google. This is not the only case to be addressed, rather Kelsey’s push for formal judgment has spurred others across the US to question and fight the space social media takes up, most frequently within school environments. In another case, a trial in New Mexico is taken on, also accusing Meta of preying on the exploitation of impressionable minds. 

The takeoff we see in trying social media companies could have a large impact on the companies themselves. For one thing, the plaintiffs are calling for a total re-shaping of the services' established designs, a ‘rebrand’ or ‘redo’ that we can assume would take lots of opinions, resources, and research. Of course there is also the matter of money, where in the case that the judge rules in favor of the plaintiffs, implies an obvious loss of substantial money for the companies. Generally speaking, the Kelsey case could spur a new legal precedent for social media business models. 

There is of course a positive implication for the mobilization of people against big business, as according to Matt Bergman, founding attorney of the Social Media Victims Law Center, “Simply taking the case to trial was a win in itself.” Even given the guarantee that Meta and YouTube would appeal if Kaley wins, Bergman sees any victory as substantial. “Win or lose the outcome of this trial, victims in the United States have won because now we know that social media companies can and will be held accountable before a fair and impartial jury," Bergman said.(NBC news) ”And in some cases plaintiffs will prevail, and in some they may not, but we are just gratified for the opportunity to get this far, and there will be many more trials in the future.

The time for staking their arguments is now closed, and we wait in a period of steep deliberation for the verdict as the future is mulled over by the powdered-wig powerhouses. We’ll keep you updated. 

Pic taken from "Big Tech" hearing on Capitol Hill, Jan. 31, 2024.