YouTube Executive Testifies in Landmark Social Media Addiction Trial
By Tanveer Ahmed :
A YouTube executive took the witness stand Monday in a groundbreaking trial over social media addiction, insisting that the Google-owned platform’s primary goal is delivering value to users rather than hooking them on harmful binge-viewing.
Cristos Goodrow, YouTube’s vice president of engineering, faced aggressive questioning from plaintiff’s attorney Mark Lanier, who pressed him to defend the company’s ambitious decade-old target of increasing viewer time to more than one billion hours daily by 2016.
Lanier drew parallels to his previous interrogation of Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg last week, pointing out that Goodrow’s compensation rose alongside company share prices, meaning he personally benefited financially from increasing user engagement.
“YouTube is not designed to maximise time,” Goodrow responded, even as court exhibits showed company documents indicating viewer engagement was a priority performance metric for the platform. “It’s designed to give people the most value.”
Features Designed to Entice
As a counterpoint, Lanier had Goodrow detail numerous features YouTube has added over the years, including auto-play functionality for videos and advertisements, as well as a version of the platform specifically designed for children.
The lawyer argued these features were carefully crafted to lure users onto a “treadmill of continuous checking” for new content, keeping them endlessly scrolling through the platform.
Lanier also pointed to internal YouTube documents referencing outside research that found harmful effects from excessive video consumption, suggesting the company was aware of potential risks while continuing to prioritise engagement.
The Plaintiff’s Story
The trial centres on Kaley G.M., a 20-year-old California resident who has been a heavy social media user since early childhood. According to her lawyers, she began using YouTube at age six, joined Instagram at nine, and later became active on TikTok and Snapchat.
Kaley is expected to testify this week, possibly as early as Tuesday, giving jurors a firsthand account of how social media use affected her mental health and development. Her legal team has sharply criticised Instagram for deliberately targeting children, a charge the company denies.
Setting Legal Precedent
This trial represents the first in a series of lawsuits filed by American families against social media platforms, and will determine whether Google and Meta deliberately designed their products to encourage compulsive use among young people.
The case is being closely watched because its outcome could establish a standard for resolving thousands of similar lawsuits that blame social media for fueling an epidemic of depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and suicide among youth.
TikTok and Snapchat, both originally named in the complaint, reached settlements with the plaintiff before the trial began, leaving Google’s YouTube and Meta’s Instagram as the remaining defendants.
The trial is scheduled to continue until late March, when the jury will decide whether the tech giants bear responsibility for the mental health problems suffered by Kaley and countless other young users.
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