Two attorneys with ties to Churches of Christ win landmark social media case

‘For years, social media companies have profited from targeting children while concealing their addictive and dangerous design features,” said attorney Joseph VanZandt.

That could change soon, added VanZandt, a deacon of the University Church of Christ in Montgomery, Ala. In a Los Angeles courtroom on Wednesday, a jury found that Meta and Google were responsible for the depression and anxiety of a woman who compulsively used social media as a child. 

The California jury awarded the 20-year-old woman, known by the names K.G.M. and Kaley, $3 million. 

But the verdict is “bigger than one case,” said VanZandt, co-lead attorney for Kaley and others suing social media companies.

Joseph VanZandt

“Today’s verdict is a referendum — from a jury, to an entire industry — that accountability has arrived,” VanZandt said in a joint statement with Kaley’s legal team, as reported by KUOW.

VanZandt was one of two attorneys with ties to Churches of Christ on the team. Mark Lanier, who grew up in the pews of the Broadway Church of Christ in Lubbock, Texas, questioned witnesses, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, during the five-week trial. Lanier, a renowned trial lawyer, author and Bible class teacher, also prayed on the courthouse steps with families who say their children have suffered grave harm as a result of social media. 

In a clip from “TODAY,” Mark Lanier prays on the steps of a Los Angeles courtroom with families who say that social media has harmed or contributed to the deaths of their children.

During the trial, Kaley’s team showed the court internal documents from Meta in which Zuckerberg and other executives detailed the company’s focus on getting and retaining young users on their platforms, which include Facebook and Instagram. The apps require users to be at least 13 years old, but one internal memo contained research on users at age 11.

“This is the first time in history a jury has heard testimony by executives and seen internal documents that we believe prove these companies chose profits over children,” VanZandt told media, including the New York Times, after the verdict.

Related: Pair of attorneys from Churches of Christ challenge Zuckerberg in social media case

Kaley testified that she developed depression and body dysmorphia as she continually compared herself to others on social media and used filters to enhance her appearance. She craved the validation that apps such as Instagram provide through numbers of “likes” and often ran to the bathroom at school to check the number of “likes” she had received for her posts.

Social media companies are not legally responsible for what users post, according to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. But Kaley’s team argued that social media companies design their platforms to hold young people’s attention through features such as infinite scroll, notifications and autoplay.

Mark Lanier

“That’s called the engineering of addiction,” Lanier said. As he questioned Zuckerberg, Lanier and his team held up a 35-foot collage of hundreds of selfies Kaley had obsessively posted to Instagram as she struggled with body-image issues. 

Lanier earned an undergraduate degree in Bible from Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tenn., which is associated with Churches of Christ. He then returned to Lubbock and earned his juris doctorate from Texas Tech. He serves on Lipscomb’s board of trustees and is founder of the Lanier Theological Library in Houston.

Mark Lanier speaks during a luncheon on the campus of Lipscomb University.

VanZandt earned undergraduate and law degrees from Faulkner University in Montgomery, which also is associated with Churches of Christ. He serves on the board of directors of Agape of Central Alabama and Alabama Christian Academy.

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