Column: Lawsuits Holding Social Platforms Responsible for Teen Mental Health Threaten Free Speech Protections

A surge of lawsuits blaming social media platforms for young people's mental-health problems has led to landmark jury verdicts and renewed debate about where responsibility should lie for online harms. In two high-profile cases, juries last week returned very different but consequential awards: a California jury awarded $6 million to a 20-year-old plaintiff identified as Kaley, also known as KGM, in a case that blamed Google and Meta for contributing to psychological struggles; and a New Mexico jury found Meta liable under state consumer-protection laws and imposed a $375 million verdict for alleged failures to safeguard children from online exploitation.

Those outcomes have intensified bipartisan calls for action. Lawmakers and advocates across the political spectrum are both proposing legislation and supporting litigation aimed at limiting perceived harms from platforms. Plaintiffs in these suits argue that features and design choices on apps such as YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and other services are intended to keep teens engaged—sometimes to the point of addiction—and that those design choices can contribute to depression, alienation and other mental-health problems.

But the counterargument, advanced by technology companies and their defenders, is that platform creators cannot be held responsible for the complex personal, familial and medical factors that underlie most mental-health conditions. As one version of that defense puts it, social media offers both harms and benefits: it can erode self-esteem for some users, yet it also provides information, social connection, opportunities to learn and to express oneself, and tools to fight isolation for many others.

The columnist making this case writes from a personal perspective as a father and grandfather, stressing that parental involvement and individual responsibility remain central to addressing adolescent mental health. He notes that teenage depression predates smartphones and social media; young people in earlier generations also experienced intense adolescent misery long before the internet era. That historical context, he argues, cautions against simplistic attributions of causation to platforms alone.

Beyond questions of causation, the columnist warns that the current litigation strategy carries constitutional and policy risks. He invokes the First Amendment, observing that the Founders limited government power to regulate speech: —Congress shall make "no law…"—doesn't allow lawmakers to restrict our speech and religious rights no matter what ill effects book-banners and atheists might raise. Legal scholars and policy analysts say court verdicts that effectively require platforms to alter features or restrict access could produce the same result as direct legislation, only without the political safeguards and debate that come with democratic processes. As Josh Withrow of the R Street Institute warned, such rulings "will compel social media companies to restrict access to and features on their platforms in a way that would be unconstitutional if mandated directly by legislation."

The columnist also highlights the practical limits of what platforms can do. With an estimated 1,600 lawsuits pending, it is unclear what technical or policy changes could prevent every possible harm short of substantially limiting access to these services. He contrasts society's acceptance of other harmful trade-offs—such as nearly 37,000 annual motor-vehicle deaths in exchange for mobility, or the long-standing decision not to ban alcohol despite its harms—with the impulse to ban or cripple products people widely desire. The point, he says, is that attempting to eliminate every risk would destroy the benefits that have made these technologies ubiquitous.

The debate is not merely academic. It touches on core questions about accountability, consumer protection, parental responsibility, constitutional law and the future of digital platforms. Whether courts will continue to assign liability to platforms in ways that influence product design and content moderation remains an open question. The columnist argues that the balance should favor preserving American freedoms to use the internet and media platforms, even while acknowledging the need for better parental involvement, personal responsibility, and targeted policies that address clearly demonstrated harms without undermining free expression.

This column was first published in The Orange County Register.