MUMBAI: Imagine a 19-year-old girl stepping into a Los Angeles courtroom just last month, known only by her initials to shield what remains of her privacy after years of very public suffering—K.G.M., as the world recognizes her, commenced her digital existence at eight years old with a YouTube account; by nine she had embraced Instagram, by ten Musically—the precursor to TikTok—and by eleven Snapchat claimed her attention; what followed, according to her testimony and medical documentation, resembles a cascade of modern adolescent tribulations: depression that deepened with each passing year, anxiety rendering ordinary social interactions insurmountable obstacles, suicidal thoughts necessitating hospitalization, self-harm practices, and body dysmorphia so severe that mirrors transformed into adversaries.
This distinction carries profound significance, both within legal frameworks and in how we comprehend our relationship with technology; for three decades, internet enterprises have sheltered behind a federal statute known as Section 230, which essentially declares that platforms cannot be held accountable as publishers for user-generated content; it explains why Facebook evades lawsuits regarding defamatory posts, and how YouTube escapes liability when harmful content finds its way onto their servers; K.G.M.’s legal team has discovered a narrow circumventing around this fortress—they are not litigating over any specific video or image; they are challenging design choices—the autoplay that eliminates natural stopping points, the notifications triggering dopamine hits, the beauty filters distorting her self-perception, the recommendation algorithms serving increasingly extreme content because engagement, not wellbeing, defined their metric of success.
In legal terminology, this constitutes product liability, not content moderation. In human terms, it represents the distinction between blaming a library for stocking dangerous books and condemning a cigarette manufacturer for engineering addiction; the tobacco analogy is not coincidental—K.G.M.’s legal counsel has explicitly invoked litigation strategies that dismantled Big Tobacco in the 1990s, and the parallels evoke discomfort; internal documents leaked by whistleblower Frances Haugen revealed that Meta understood 32% of teenage girls reported Instagram intensified negative feelings about their bodies; the company’s own researchers discovered 13% of teen girls acknowledged the platform exacerbated eating disorders.
Yet these insights, buried in PowerPoint presentations and internal message boards, never translated into fundamental redesigns instead. Meta optimized for what they termed “total teen time spent”—a metric intrinsically linked to advertising revenue; the platforms comprehended, according to these documents, that young users were developing compulsive relationships with their products, that the psychological mechanisms being activated mirrored those exploited by slot machines, and that consequences included precisely the mental health crises K.G.M. experienced, what they allegedly neglected was warning any parent or altering course.
The trial commencing in late January marks the inaugural occasion these arguments will face jury evaluation; two of the four original defendants, Snapchat and TikTok, settled confidentially mere days before opening statements, suggesting they feared precedent more than financial compensation; Meta and YouTube elected to contest the allegations, their defence resting upon two pillars familiar to anyone tracking technology discourse in India: initially, they argue algorithmic recommendations constitute editorial speech shielded by the First Amendment—essentially that selecting content to present users constitutes expressive behaviour comparable to a newspaper’s editorial judgment.
Secondly, they maintain K.G.M.’s difficulties stem from complex factors including pre-existing conditions, familial environment, and inherent adolescent challenges, rendering causation impossible to establish; the platforms are not incorrect that mental health is multifactorial, yet plaintiffs have compiled internal studies, expert testimony from neuroscientists and child psychologists, and comparative data, revealing dramatic surges in teen depression and suicide rates correlating precisely with widespread adoption of algorithmic social media circa 2012.
For Indian readers, the geographical distance of this California courtroom might suggest positioning the narrative within a category of American legal peculiarity, something to observe with anthropological detachment; this would constitute an error. India boasts over 400 million social media users, with teenage penetration mirroring patterns K.G.M.’s case delineates. a 2023 survey by the Internet and Mobile Association of India indicated children as young as nine access platforms with age restrictions of 13, frequently without parental awareness of algorithmic content delivery.
The National Crime Records Bureau has documented alarming increases in juvenile self-harm and suicide, with cyberbullying and social media-related distress frequently referenced in police reports; Indian government’s sporadic regulatory attempts—bans on specific applications, intermittent threats to platform accountability—have been more geopolitical than protective, emphasizing data sovereignty and content removal rather than design features fostering addiction.
Developments in Los Angeles during forthcoming weeks will resonate through courtrooms and regulatory chambers globally; if K.G.M. prevails, if a jury acknowledges that algorithmic design can be recent legal frameworks, it would validate the cries pursued by over 2,000 similar cases consolidated in federal court, including lawsuits initiated by school districts witnessing counselling services overwhelmed by students in crisis.
It would fortify regulators’ positions in Europe implementing Digital Services Act’s transparency requirements, in Australia having banned social media for under-16s, and potentially in India where Digital Personal Data Protection Act remains largely silent regarding children’s specific vulnerabilities to algorithmic manipulation.
The trial carries strategic import for technology companies’ operations within the world’s largest democracy; Meta and Google have invested billions in Indian market expansion, recognizing the next billion internet users will originate from the developing economies; they have lobbied vigorously against data localization requirements and content removal directives, yet a product liability framework, if established in California and exported through legal precedent, would impose obligations impervious to lobbying—obligations designing platforms not exploiting developmental psychology, providing warnings about known risks, prioritizing child safety over engagement metrics.
These would constitute global obligations, affecting platform operations in Mumbai and Delhi as surely as in Menlo Park.
K.G.M. herself remains predominantly obscured behind her initials, a legal necessity considering her age and medical history; yet her presence signifies something transcending individual grievance; she represents the inaugural member of her generation compelling these companies to respond, under oath and before a jury, regarding design choices formulated in conference rooms where primary metric was retention and primary victims were children unable to consent to psychological experimentation conducted upon them.
Regardless of victory or defeat, K.G.M. has already transformed accountability’s architecture; settlements extracted from Snapchat and TikTok established these companies will compensate to evade jury examination; the trial proceeding against Meta and YouTube demonstrates certain plaintiffs refuse settlement, demanding public scrutiny of internal documents and executive testimony.
For Indian parents witnessing children disappear into scrolling trances, educators observing attention spans fragmenting, policymakers struggling to regulate technologies evolving faster than legislation, this case offers a template; it suggests pathways to change may not traverse content moderation—the ceaseless whack-a-mole of removing harmful posts—but through product design, via fundamental engineering decisions determining whether platforms serve users or exploit them.
The verdict, when materialized, will not resolve adolescent mental health crisis within digital age; this crisis encompasses multiple origins and requires multifaceted responses—educational, medical, familial, regulatory; yet it will address a question haunting technology since inception: are these platforms common carriers, neutral conduits for speech immune from responsibility regarding usage patterns? Or do they constitute products deliberately engineered to elicit specific behaviors, bearing equivalent accountability as any manufacturer releasing hazardous substances into world?
K.G.M. commenced journey with these platforms as an eight-year-old girl clicking “accept” on terms of service beyond her comprehension; 12 years later, she has compelled most powerful global companies to confront the true significance of that click.
* Brijesh Singh is a senior IPS officer and an author (@brijesh_singh on X). His latest book on ancient India, “The Cloud Chariot” (Penguin) is out on stands. Views are personal.
