Social media addiction trial: Jury struggling to agree on Google or Meta, what happens if a consensus isn't reached

A jury in Los Angeles has told the presiding judge that it is struggling to reach a unanimous decision against one of the two defendants in a landmark social media addiction trial. The defendants are Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp-parent company Meta and YouTube, and both tech giants are facing charges for allegedly impacting the mental health of young people through their platforms.According to a report by news agency Reuters, the jury, which has been deliberating for over a week, sent word to Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl this week that it is having difficulty coming to a consensus on one of the defendants. The jury, however, did not specify which company the impasse involves.At the centre of the trial is a young woman who claims she became addicted to YouTube and Instagram at a young age, and that both platforms were designed in ways that exploited her vulnerability and caused her lasting harm. She alleges that the companies built their products to maximise engagement at the expense of user wellbeing – keeping her and millions of others like her glued to their screens with little regard for the psychological consequences.Judge Kuhl, responding to the jury's note about the impasse, urged the jurors to continue their efforts and reach a verdict if they possibly can. But she also laid out the stark alternative: if the jury cannot reach a unanimous agreement on one or both defendants, the case against that defendant will have to be retried from scratch with an entirely new set of jurors.A retrial would mean the entire process — witnesses, arguments, evidence, deliberations — would have to be repeated, at significant cost and delay to all parties involved. The stakes of this case are high because the social media industry has faced growing scrutiny over its impact on young people's mental health, with research increasingly linking heavy platform use among teenagers to rising rates of anxiety, depression and disordered eating. Critics argue that companies like Meta and Google were fully aware of these risks and chose profit over protection. Both Google and Meta have denied wrongdoing, arguing that their platforms provide significant value to users.