A social media trial is currently underway in Los Angeles – here’s what you need to know about it.

Social media testing is underway in Los Angeles.

What happens next could change the way they work.

Inside L.A.’s Supreme Court, a historic trial is underway. Accusations are mounting that social media companies, like tobacco and cigarettes in the 1980s, are addictive by design.

He will face about 22 “bellwether” trials, i.e., test cases, with lawyers considering testimony from more than 1,500 people when initiating proceedings.

Opening statements for the first trial begin on Monday, with tech executives including Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg expected to testify.

Over the past few years, people have tried to sue the owners of Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and Snapchat for online harm, but they have largely been unsuccessful.

Often, social media companies will rely on a defence called Section 230 of the US Communications Act, which protects online platforms that publish third-party content.

It states that they are not responsible for the content posted by users on their platform.

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So what makes this court case so different?

For the first time, social media companies will face a trial by jury.

Those jurors would not decide whether specific content on the platform was harmful. Instead, they will decide whether social media companies were careless when they created and changed their products to encourage people to spend more time on them.

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For example, one feature expected to arrive is “infinite scrolling”, whereby your social media feed will never end no matter how much time you spend looking at it.

According to the class action master complaint, the plaintiffs allege that Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and Snapchat have “changed the way our children think, feel, and behave.”

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If jurors decide that the companies were negligent when they made their products, they must also decide whether that negligence caused significant harm to a young person.

In this case, the man is known as KGM; a 19-year-old California girl says she suffered anxiety, depression and body image issues after using Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube as a child.

TikTok and Snapchat have already settled with him out of court, leaving only Meta and YouTube in the lawsuit.

This is a “bellwether” trial, meaning it is being used as a test case to see how much compensation victims can get in future litigation against social media companies.

Should tech companies lose, they might have to modify the layout of their platforms.

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Although TikTok and Snapchat have reached a settlement in this case, they will be involved in future cases.

Instagram chief Adam Mosseri will also testify during the trial.

Tech companies say there is no clear link between technology use and addiction, and there needs to be strong evidence that they cause significant harm to young users.

In a blog post, Meta said that such legal action against him “oversimplifies” the “complex issue” of teen mental health.

“Limiting the challenges faced by adolescents to a single factor ignores scientific research and the many stressors affecting youth today, such as academic pressures, school safety, socio-economic challenges, and substance abuse,” the post said.

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In a statement to Sky News, Google also denied the claims.

“Providing safe, healthy experiences for young people has always been at the core of our work,” said Google spokesman Jose Castañeda.

“In collaboration with youth, mental health and parenting experts, we created services and policies to provide youth with age-appropriate experiences and stronger controls for parents.

“The allegations made in these complaints are simply not true.”