Meta — the parent company of social media platforms Facebook and Instagram — and Google are on trial in Los Angeles following a lawsuit accusing them of fueling and profiting from addictive behaviors aimed at children and young adults. We speak to three people attending the landmark trial, including TIME “100 Most Influential People in Health” honoree Laura Marquez-Garret, an attorney at the Seattle-based Social Media Victims Law Center who has filed more than 1,200 complaints against tech companies throughout the country. Their work is part of a nationwide fight on behalf of victims and families, including two of our guests, parent advocate Lori Schott and Lennon Torres, a former child performer who now works to hold tech companies accountable for facilitating online child sexual abuse.
Schott’s daughter Analee was just 18 years old when she died by suicide in 2020, following a struggle with depression and body dysmorphia that Schott says was aggravated by “predatory tech.” Schott and Torres say Meta knew about the dangers of products like face augmentation filters and easily bypassed age verification, yet did nothing to improve its systems. “I was receiving hundreds of messages from grown adult men trying to groom me online because they understood I was vulnerable,” says Torres, now 26. “The social media platforms could easily stop strangers from being able to contact kids … [but] when I look at big tech leadership, I just see lazy. I see lack of innovation. I see a lack of accountability.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Democracy Now! | Radio Free (2026-02-19T13:12:53+00:00) “Predatory Tech”: Silicon Valley on Trial in Landmark Youth Social Media Addiction Case. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2026/02/19/predatory-tech-silicon-valley-on-trial-in-landmark-youth-social-media-addiction-case-2/
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