Shannon Bond

They're going to hear from KGM herself.

Here's Matthew Bergman, KGM's attorney.

And tech executives are also expected to take the stand, including notably Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Instagram and Facebook owner Meta, and Adam Masseri, the head of Instagram.

Yeah, this case is actually just the first in a wave of lawsuits against social media companies.

They've been brought by more than 1,000 individual plaintiffs, hundreds of school districts, and dozens of state attorneys general.

And I should note Snapchat recently settled with the plaintiff in this first trial, but it's also named in these other lawsuits.

Now, broadly, in these cases, the plaintiffs are accusing these companies of designing features like infinite scroll and auto-playing videos, frequent notifications, that they say make these apps nearly impossible for kids to put down.

And they say in some cases this has led to depression, eating disorders, self-harm, even suicide.

And the plaintiffs are seeking monetary damages as well as changes to the way these social media apps are designed.

And what do the companies say?

Well, as you'd expect, they dispute these allegations.

They say they've worked to make their platform safer for kids.

They argue there's no clinical diagnosis of addiction to social media.

And they say a direct link between using social media and mental health problems in kids has not been proven.

Now, the companies also say that federal law, including the First Amendment, protects the decisions they make about content, including the design of their platforms.

I spoke with Eric Goldman, who's a law professor at Santa Clara University.

And he says if juries end up siding with plaintiffs, these cases could really change how not just social media, but the larger Internet works.

He's wary of courts or regulators getting involved in these design decisions.

Yeah, because there are so many.

These cases have been combined into two big buckets, one in state court here in California, one in federal court.