A person holds up a phone full of social media apps. (EPA/Yonhap)
The 6-year-old practically vibrates with joy. She uploads her first video on YouTube, one in which she plays games with her friends. The glee she feels prompts her to sing about sea lions juggling fish. It did not take long for Kaley Glenn-Mills, now 20, to lose the spark she had when she was 6. At the age of 10, Kaley started to despise her body for being “too fat.” When she was 12, she wrote a song about “sad girls” and uploaded a video of it on YouTube. When asked by a lawyer what she had been battling against, Kaley replied, “Depression.” When the depression got worse, she resorted to self-harm. US Attorney Yang Soo-seok was one of the lawyers who represented the plaintiff in the K.G.M. v. Meta et al. case, the first case in the world to hold a social media company responsible for teen addiction in March.Yang, along with around 20 other lawyers from 12 law firms, strived night and day for months to prove that Meta and Google were held accountable for teen addiction. Finally, on March 25, the Los Angeles County Superior Court’s jury of 12 handed down a verdict that found the companies responsible for compensation and stated that Kaley be paid US$6 million, including US$3 million in punitive damages. This was the first ruling that shattered the seemingly impregnable logic used by social media companies to avoid taking social responsibility.“Do you know how much it hurts to see such a lovable child be so self-degrading?” he said. “Mark Lanier, a lawyer representing her, told her she wasn’t fat at all and that no child should be thinking of themselves the way she did. A hush fell over the court,” Yang said. The Hankyoreh spoke to Yang over videoconference on July 16.
