CASE OVERVIEW
Jurisdiction Los Angeles Superior Court, California, USA
Lead Plaintiff KGM (pseudonym), age 20, alleging addiction to social media from age 10
Defendants Meta (Instagram, Facebook) and YouTube (Google/Alphabet)
Trial Type First of 20+ bellwether trials; consolidated group of 1,600+ plaintiffs
Core Allegation Intentional design of addictive products causing harm to minors
Alleged Harms Depression, anxiety, body dysmorphia from compulsive social media use
Prior Settlements TikTok and Snap settled before trial; terms undisclosed
Status (Feb 2026) Plaintiff case ongoing; defence to present after plaintiff rests
- Background and Legal Context
The trial of KGM v. Meta and YouTube, which commenced in Los Angeles in January 2026, represents a landmark moment in the evolving global debate on the legal liability of social media platforms for harms caused to minors. KGM, the lead plaintiff in a consolidated mass tort action comprising over 1,600 claimants — including more than 350 families and 250 school districts — alleges that she developed a compulsive dependency on Instagram and YouTube before the age of 10, resulting in years of depression, anxiety, and body dysmorphia.
The case is structured as a series of ‘bellwether’ trials, the first of which involves KGM’s individual claims. Bellwether proceedings are a procedural device common in US mass tort litigation: they allow courts and parties to gauge how juries respond to the underlying theories of liability and harm, thereby facilitating broader settlement negotiations. The outcome of KGM’s case thus carries legal and financial implications that extend well beyond the parties before the court.
Notably, two defendants — TikTok and Snap — reached undisclosed settlement agreements with the plaintiffs immediately before trial. Meta and YouTube have denied all allegations of wrongdoing, characterising their platforms as providing safe, valuable experiences for young users.
1.1 Legal Theory: Product Liability and Algorithmic Design
The plaintiffs’ central legal theory applies product liability principles to software design. Rather than targeting social media use per se, the lawsuits allege that specific design features — algorithmic recommendation engines, variable-reward notification systems, and infinite scroll — were intentionally engineered to maximise engagement in ways that are psychologically exploitative, particularly for developing minds. This is legally analogous to, though doctrinally distinct from, tobacco litigation, where the harmful substance was the product itself; here, the claim is that the architecture of the user interface constitutes the defect.
A significant evidentiary challenge for plaintiffs is the absence of ‘social media addiction’ as a recognised clinical diagnosis in the DSM-5. When Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, testified for the defence, he strategically characterised high usage as ‘problematic use’ rather than clinical addiction — a framing that exploits the diagnostic gap. Nevertheless, plaintiffs draw on a growing body of peer-reviewed research documenting compulsive use patterns and associated psychological harms in adolescent populations. - Singapore’s Regulatory and Social Context
While the KGM trial is proceeding under US law, its implications reverberate globally — and Singapore offers a particularly instructive case study for assessing those implications. Singapore has one of the highest rates of smartphone and social media penetration in Asia-Pacific, with a youth population that is among the most digitally connected in the world. It also has a sophisticated regulatory infrastructure and a government that has demonstrated both willingness and capacity to act on digital harms.
2.1 Youth Digital Exposure in Singapore
Singapore children are, by most measures, heavy users of the same platforms at the centre of the KGM litigation. National surveys conducted by the Media Literacy Council and the Ministry of Social and Family Development have consistently found that a significant proportion of children aged 10 to 17 spend multiple hours daily on social media platforms. Concerns about excessive screen time, cyberbullying, body image distress, and social comparison effects have been raised repeatedly by educators, child psychologists, and parents.
The COVID-19 pandemic materially accelerated youth digital engagement in Singapore, as remote schooling and restricted social activity drove adolescents further online. Anecdotal and clinical reports from restructured hospitals and school counselling services suggest elevated rates of anxiety and depression among adolescents since 2020, though attribution to any single cause remains methodologically contested.
2.2 Existing Legislative Framework
Singapore has enacted several regulatory instruments relevant to child online safety, though none directly creates civil liability for platform design analogous to the US litigation. The Online Safety Act (OSA), which came into force in February 2023, empowers the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) to issue directions to social media services that contravene online safety codes. The OSA focuses primarily on harmful content — such as sexual exploitation of minors and self-harm promotion — rather than on the addictive design of platforms.
The Broadcasting Act and the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) provide additional regulatory levers, including obligations around data minimisation and consent. However, Singapore currently lacks legislation that would impose product liability on platforms for the psychological consequences of their algorithmic design choices — which is precisely the novel legal ground that the KGM trial is attempting to break. - Potential Impacts on Singapore
3.1 Regulatory and Legislative Reform
The most direct Singapore impact of the KGM litigation lies in its potential to accelerate regulatory reform. Singapore’s government has historically been receptive to international legal and regulatory developments, particularly those arising in jurisdictions with well-developed common law systems. A jury verdict in favour of KGM — or a major settlement — would constitute strong evidence that platform design choices can be causally linked to quantifiable harm, a finding that would significantly strengthen the hand of IMDA and the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) in pressing for more stringent platform obligations.
Likely reform vectors include: mandatory age verification requirements with enforceable technical standards; restrictions on algorithmic amplification for users below 18; notification and usage-limit defaults for minors; and expanded content moderation obligations specifically tailored to vulnerable age groups. The UK’s Online Safety Act 2023 and Australia’s Online Safety Act 2021 (and its proposed social media ban for under-16s) have already provided precedent that Singapore legislators are likely monitoring.
3.2 Civil Litigation Landscape in Singapore
Singapore’s legal system does not permit class actions in the American sense, and the tort of negligence as applied to product liability would face distinct doctrinal challenges in the Singapore context. Nevertheless, the KGM trial could catalyse individual or representative actions in Singapore in several ways.
First, if US courts establish that platforms owed a duty of care to minor users in respect of addictive design, Singapore courts could find such reasoning persuasive in analogous negligence claims, particularly given the shared common law heritage. Second, the discovery materials surfaced in the US litigation — internal Meta and YouTube communications about engagement design — could inform regulatory investigations in Singapore under the OSA or PDPA. Third, the reputational and commercial pressure on platforms arising from bellwether verdicts may lead them to voluntarily implement design changes globally, indirectly protecting Singapore youth without the need for domestic litigation.
3.3 Mental Health and Public Health Policy
Beyond the legal domain, the KGM trial elevates the public health framing of social media harms in ways that are directly relevant to Singapore’s health policy architecture. The Ministry of Health and the Institute of Mental Health have been expanding their attention to adolescent mental health, and the evidential record being assembled in the KGM trial — including expert testimony on the neuropsychological mechanisms of addictive design — will provide a richer empirical foundation for Singapore’s own population health assessments.
Singapore’s schools have already begun implementing digital wellness curricula and device-free recess periods. The trial’s outcome could accelerate the adoption of more prescriptive school-based social media policies and reinforce calls for a national digital health framework that situates platform design — not merely user behaviour — as a structural determinant of adolescent mental health.
3.4 Corporate Conduct and Platform Accountability
Meta and YouTube both have significant user bases and commercial operations in Singapore. A major adverse verdict in the KGM trial would likely prompt these platforms to implement design modifications that apply globally, including to their Singapore operations. More importantly, the testimony of Mark Zuckerberg and Adam Mosseri — acknowledging, under oath, that underage users access platforms in violation of stated policies — will intensify pressure on platforms to demonstrate more credible compliance efforts in regulated markets such as Singapore.
The IMDA and MCI could leverage this testimony in negotiations with platforms over their Singapore compliance posture, using the threat of domestic regulatory action to extract commitments that go beyond what global platform policies currently require. Singapore’s small but digitally dense market gives it disproportionate leverage in such negotiations relative to its population size. - Comparative Analysis: Singapore vs. Other Jurisdictions
Dimension United States United Kingdom / EU Singapore
Civil liability for design harm Under active litigation; bellwether trial ongoing Not established; regulatory model preferred No equivalent cause of action; regulatory levers available
Age verification obligations KOSA proposed; state laws emerging (e.g. Texas, Florida) UK OSA requires robust age assurance; EU DSA mandates risk assessment OSA code expected; currently voluntary for platforms
Social media ban / restriction for minors No national ban; some state-level restrictions Australia: proposed ban under 16; France: pilot ban under 15 No ban; government monitoring international developments
Platform enforcement model Primarily litigation-driven; FTC enforcement Regulatory fines and direction powers; DSA systemic risk audits IMDA direction powers under OSA; engagement-based compliance - Key Uncertainties and Limitations
Several factors counsel caution in extrapolating from the KGM trial to Singapore policy outcomes.
Causation remains contested. Establishing that specific platform design features — as opposed to pre-existing mental health vulnerabilities, family environment, or other digital exposures — caused KGM’s specific harms is an extraordinarily difficult evidentiary task. If plaintiffs fail on causation, the precedential value of the trial for regulatory arguments will be substantially reduced.
The diagnostic gap persists. Without formal DSM recognition of social media addiction, plaintiffs and regulators alike must work with a contested evidentiary framework. Singapore’s medical and psychiatric establishment has not formally classified problematic social media use as an addiction, which would affect both litigation and regulatory framing.
Singapore’s political economy of digital regulation differs from the US context. Singapore’s government has historically preferred co-regulatory and collaborative models with major technology platforms, which have significant commercial presences in Singapore. A litigation-driven accountability model is unlikely to be transposed directly.
The bellwether mechanism creates uncertainty about representativeness. KGM’s specific facts — an unusually early onset of alleged addiction, direct family monitoring attempts, documented therapeutic history — may be more sympathetic to juries than those of other plaintiffs in the consolidated action. A plaintiff victory may not be replicable across the broader case population. - Conclusions and Recommendations
The KGM v. Meta and YouTube trial is a pivotal moment in the global reckoning with social media’s impact on adolescent mental health. For Singapore, its most significant implications are likely to be felt not in the courts — where the absence of an equivalent cause of action limits direct transposition — but in the regulatory, policy, and public health domains.
For policymakers and regulators:
Monitor the trial’s outcome and the evidential record closely for use in strengthening IMDA’s Online Safety Code, particularly around age verification and default safety settings for minors.
Consider commissioning an independent review of whether Singapore’s OSA adequately addresses platform design as a structural determinant of child harm, as distinct from harmful content.
Engage bilaterally with UK, Australian, and EU counterparts to develop a coordinated regulatory position on algorithmic design standards for platforms accessed by minors.
For educators and mental health professionals:
Incorporate findings from the KGM trial’s expert evidence into school-based digital literacy and wellbeing programmes, shifting the narrative from individual user responsibility to platform design accountability.
Advocate for expanded longitudinal research in Singapore on the relationship between specific platform features — algorithmic feeds, notifications, infinite scroll — and adolescent mental health outcomes.
For the legal community:
Track the development of US product liability doctrine as applied to software design; consider whether Singapore’s tort law framework could accommodate analogous claims, and whether legislative reform would be necessary or desirable.
Examine whether the discovery materials from the US litigation could be used in Singapore regulatory proceedings or public interest advocacy.
Sources: Yahoo News / Guardian reporting on KGM v. Meta & YouTube (February 2026); Media Literacy Council Singapore; IMDA Online Safety Act; DSM-5 (APA); UK Online Safety Act 2023; Australia Online Safety Act 2021.