As US courts find Meta & YouTube liable for psychological harm, is the social media ban protecting young peoples’ mental health here?

Three months into Australian social media age restrictions, back-to-back verdicts in the United States place responsibility for harming children’s mental health squarely on big tech’s shoulders.

On March 24, a New Mexico jury found Meta (which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) liable for the way its platforms expose children to sexual exploitation, ordering them to pay a civil penalty of US$375million for thousands of violations of the state’s Unfair Practices Act.

The next day, a jury in California found both Meta and Google (YouTube’s owner) had intentionally designed platforms that are addictive and harmed a child’s mental health. The plaintiff, a woman known as Kacey or KGM, was awarded a total of US$6 million.

This could represent a “big tobacco moment” for tech, says Dr Christopher Rudge, lecturer at Sydney Law School and deputy director of Sydney Health Law. “One of the ingenious ways in which litigators in the big tobacco legal suits overcame a longstanding hurdle was to say that we’re not complaining about tobacco marketing or the product generally. What we’re saying is manufacturers of the product designed it to be addictive,” he explains.

Similarly, KGM’s case did not seek to prove harm from the content itself, because companies have legislative immunity over any liability that might arise from it, Dr Rudge says. Rather, they successfully argued the product was designed to be addictive, and that the manufacturers knew it. The jury agreed—and decided this makes social media companies liable for personal injury.

In fact, Dr Rudge points out that along with $3 million in compensatory damages, the plaintiff was awarded $3 million in punitive damages. “The punitive component shows that the jury found the companies’ conduct was outrageous.”

The case also follows a trend towards courts awarding monetary compensation for psychiatric injury, he says.

The new restrictions here could make future legal action difficult for social media users under 16, since any harm would likely involve them doing something unlawful—although retrospective actions are possible, Dr Rudge adds.

But is the ban actually achieving its goal of protecting young people’s mental wellbeing?

Early poll suggest GPs are starting to see changes

Over two-thirds of GPs are confident the ban will mitigate social media’s negative mental health impacts in the long term, a Healthed poll of over 2100 GPs found on February 17. Even at this early stage, 62% had noticed at least some shift in this direction.

Fewer GPs reported any changes in physical health markers, with 7% seeing improvements in young people’s sleep quality/duration, and 18% noticing increased engagement in physical or extracurricular activities.

“Although the numbers are yet small, this could reflect tens of thousands of young people sleeping better and being more active,” says Dr Wayne Warburton, Professor in the School of Psychological Sciences at Macquarie University.

A small number of GPs (4%) noted concerns about loss of social networks, while only 3% reported seeing a major or moderate increase in social media withdrawal—and 7% a slight increase.

Updates needed to sustain positive outcomes

While these signals are promising, more than 50% of GPs believe restrictions must be expanded and refined to be successful long term. A further 16% felt the ban in its current form is a flop, but could see it being effective if “practically feasible changes” were made. Another 16% don’t think it’s possible to stop youth accessing social media.

More than four in ten GPs said at least some of their patients younger than 16 had admitted to using workarounds (such as VPNs or ‘ghost accounts’) to bypass restrictions.

“Given that younger teens might be reluctant to disclose, the true number may be higher,” Professor Warburton says. “But it does suggest that a lot of younger teens are not bypassing age verification, and that we need big tech to do a better job with their age verification systems.”

On Tuesday eSafety, the government’s online regulator, revealed they are investigating compliance issues at Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube. The agency noted a number of poor practices, including prompting children to attempt age assurance even when their declared age was under 16, insufficient measures to prevent new under 16 accounts from being created and more.

The eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said she was concerned that despite some initial action, some social media platforms weren’t doing enough to comply.

“As a result, we are now moving into an enforcement stance,” she said. The platforms can either choose to comply or “face escalating consequences, including profound reputational erosion with governments and consumers globally.,” she added.

Dr Rudge favours broadening the policy over stricter policing.

“In any system, there will always be ways of exploiting it, and I think that needs to be factored in to some extent in a policy sense. How then do we do some other things for young people who are circumventing the system so they are better educated or supported should anything occur? Once you find specific defects that can be remedied, definitely do that.”

Ban not a magic bullet

Dr Rachael Sharman, a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of the Sunshine Coast, says it was always going to be difficult enforcing the ban in teens who have “been raised as digital natives and have formed so many communication networks online.”

GP Dr Lilijana Gorringe, a senior lecturer in the University of Sydney’s Medical School, is seeing this firsthand.

“You have lots of kids saying that nothing’s changed, which I don’t think it has. You ask them about it and they’ll be cagey and won’t say how they’ve got back on again,” she says.

“The ban was never going to be a silver bullet. There’s got to be other things in place. It’s one little part of a whole bigger picture.”

She says it’s too early to draw definitive conclusions about the ban’s impact, noting it may have more effect further down the track.

“This is a real gift to children under 10 or 12,” she says.

If nothing else, it has raised awareness, she adds.

“If you’re a parent of a child who doesn’t have a phone or doesn’t have social media, everyone is now thinking twice about it. Whereas before, it was just handed over.”

Parents as protectors – or partners in non-compliance

Around one-third of GPs had encountered instances where parents/guardians had enabled their children to bypass the ban, the survey found.

Professor Warburton says he was “surprised and saddened” to see this. “What happened to being a parent?”

Dr Sharman says this suggests we have a way to go with getting parents on board. “The next challenge perhaps is encouraging whole families to shift their dynamics to support a social media free environment for their children.”

Based on interactions during clinical consultations, 14% of GPs reported the ban had made it easier for parents to enforce boundaries, 8% said it created more conflict at home, and 7% that it was confusing – with one parent supporting the ban and the other undermining it.

“This aligns with other findings suggesting that the ban has potential for benefit but needs tweaking to achieve it,” Professor Warburton says.

Dr Gorringe notes most GPs see the symptoms of problematic social media use, but Healthed’s survey showed only about 50% are broaching the subject.

“So we need more education in this space to GPs, and maybe a guide or a toolkit on how to approach these conversations.”