Lawmakers say verdicts against Meta, Google give momentum for bill to protect kids online

Juries in New Mexico and California have accomplished something that Congress has unsuccessfully tried for years: holding social media companies accountable for endangering children who use their platforms.

The dual court rulings last week have given lawmakers new hope for advancing long-stalled bills to protect children in the digital age.

“That is a huge momentum for the cause,” Rep. Lori Trahan, Massachusetts Democrat, told The Washington Times. “Frankly, the courts did something that Congress has been unable to do. So I think for us, we have to build on that momentum.”

The New Mexico jury’s ruling, issued March 24, found Meta, the parent company of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, liable for $375 million in civil penalties for violating the state’s consumer protection laws by misleading users about the safety of its platforms and endangering children.

It was the first time a state prevailed in a court case seeking to hold a major technology company accountable for harming minors.

The next day, Meta was dealt another blow by a Los Angeles jury, which found the social media company and Google, the owner of YouTube, collectively responsible for $6 million in damages for designing their platforms to hook young users without regard for their well-being.

That case was brought by a 20-year-old woman known by her initials KGM, who alleged she became addicted to social media as a child. She said the addiction fueled her mental health struggles. She also sued TikTok and Snapchat, which settled before trial.

Meta and Google plan to appeal the decisions.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee Republican, called the court rulings “a watershed moment” in her long fight to hold Big Tech accountable for putting profits ahead of children’s safety.

“The American people have had enough,” she said. “Now that Big Tech has been found liable for the harms they have inflicted on our kids, it’s time for Congress to enshrine protections for American families into law by passing my bipartisan Kids Online Safety Act — and ensure these tragedies can never happen again.”

The Senate passed the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, in July 2024 on a 91-3 vote, but the legislation has stalled ever since despite multiple rewrites aimed at winning over its critics.

KOSA requires social media companies to protect children on their platforms through default safety and privacy settings and enhanced parental controls.

Meta, which opposes KOSA, spent a record $19.7 million on lobbying in the first nine months of last year and had one lobbyist for every six members of Congress, according to an analysis from Issue One, a cross-partisan advocacy group that seeks to reduce the influence of money in politics.

The day after the second court ruling against his company, Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was conspicuously spotted meeting with congressional leaders of both parties on Capitol Hill.

The Times asked House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, New York Democrat, whether KOSA came up in his conversation with Mr. Zuckerberg.

“That was a private conversation, but it was wide-ranging, and clearly the fact that something needs to be done to protect children and to protect seniors did come up,” Mr. Jeffries said.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat who co-authored KOSA with Ms. Blackburn, said the court rulings are “powerful proof” of the urgent need to enact the bill.

“I would urge any member of Congress that continues to do Mark Zuckerberg’s bidding to look at this verdict and their conscience,” he said. “It’s time to enact the Kids Online Safety Act into law.”

Parental advocates prefer the Senate version of KOSA over a House alternative because of its “duty of care” provision that requires social media companies to implement design standards to protect minors from specific harms, such as sexual abuse, illicit drugs, suicide and mental health disorders.

Ms. Blackburn said the New Mexico and California verdicts “prove the courts can punish past harms, but only Congress can prevent future ones” because Big Tech cannot be trusted to regulate itself.

“Americans are not interested in toothless reforms,” she said. “They want accountability.”

Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee eliminated the duty of care from their version of KOSA, which they folded into a larger package known as the Kids Internet and Digital Safety Act earlier in March, because they did not believe it would hold up in court.

Several Democrats on the panel who opposed the package told The Times that they hope the recent rulings persuade Republicans to revisit the duty of care.

“Those court cases are probably going to really make sure that people understand this is not going to stop” without protections in law, said Rep. Doris Matsui, California Democrat.

Ms. Trahan said regulations on Big Tech can “get into sticky situations with the First Amendment,” but the court decisions show there is a path to holding companies liable for their products.

“We want to do it in ways that are going to survive scrutiny by the courts, because if we pass laws that get overturned in the court, they’re not going to protect any kid,” she said.

Lawmakers are using the court rulings against Meta and Google to push other online safety legislation as well.

Sen. Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts Democrat, is calling on the House to clear a Senate-passed bill to expand a 1998 law that restricts the online collection, use and disclosure of personal information of children younger than 13.

“Big Tech’s ‘Big Tobacco’ moment has arrived,” he said. “But we cannot rely on the courthouse alone. Congress must do its part to impose real guardrails on these platforms.”

Mr. Markey authorized the initial 1998 law, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. His Senate-passed update, called COPPA 2.0, extends the law’s restrictions to minors ages 13 to 16, unless they provide consent for internet companies to collect their data.

It also adds new data minimization rules and seeks to crack down on loopholes that Big Tech may exploit to continue abusive data collection.

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing after the New Mexico ruling, the panel’s top Democrat, Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, said the decision shows that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a 30-year-old law that protects online platforms from liability for content their users post, “is not impregnable.”

“That section has protected these social media vendors for a decade or more,” he said. “It should be brought down.”

Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, a Republican member of the Judiciary Committee, agreed that the court cases should serve as a “wake-up call” to Congress on Section 230.

“It is time to declare independence from the Big Tech companies and actually get to work protecting the American people,” he told St. Louis Public Radio. “And I hope that these verdicts will be watersheds.”