Lawyers in landmark social media addiction trial make final appeals to the jury

After about a month of hearing from addiction experts, therapists, platform engineers and executives, including Mark Zuckerberg, a jury will listen to closing arguments before heading to the deliberation room to decide whether social media companies should be liable for harms caused to children using their platforms.

Closing statements in the trial will begin Thursday at the Spring Street Courthouse in Los Angeles. Lawyers representing the plaintiff, a 20-year-old woman, and those representing the two defendants, Meta and Google-owned YouTube, will make their respective cases to the jurors. TikTok and Snap were also named defendants in the lawsuit, but they each settled before the trial began.

The case, along with two others, has been selected as a bellwether trial, meaning its outcome could impact how thousands of similar lawsuits against social media companies are likely to play out.

The plaintiff, identified as KGM in documents or Kaley, as