Meta shares slip after US jury verdicts raise concerns of new legal exposure

March 26 (Reuters) - Meta shares fell 6% to ‌a 10-month low on Thursday after rulings this week found the Facebook parent ​failed to adequately warn or protect young users, stoking concerns about billions of dollars in fines from new cases and follow-on litigation.

Jurors in the first two ​U.S. trials from a wave of lawsuits accusing social media companies of harming children have found Meta ​liable, a development that could set ⁠up an appeals fight challenging long-standing legal protections for tech firms.

A Los ‌Angeles jury found Meta and Google liable on Wednesday for a young woman's depression linked to alleged addiction to Instagram and ​YouTube, awarding $6 million in ‌damages. In a separate New Mexico case, jurors ordered Meta ⁠to pay $375 million for misleading users about the safety of its platforms for children and enabling their exploitation.

"The verdicts add a new layer of risk on ⁠top of existing ‌concerns about AI capex intensity, competitive pressure from TikTok and ⁠others, and the durability of ad growth, so they act as a ‌catalyst for some profit-taking rather than the sole cause," said Adam ⁠Sarhan, chief executive of 50 Park Investments.

Snap and TikTok were ⁠also defendants in ‌the trial in California. Both settled with the plaintiff before it began.

Meta, Google, ​Snap and TikTok-parent ByteDance are facing ‌thousands of lawsuits alleging their social media platforms have harmed the mental health of teens and young ​users.

More than 2,400 such cases have been centralized before a single judge in California federal court, while thousands of cases are consolidated in ⁠California state court.

"For Snap, which is a much smaller company, I think this just increases the stakes for them if they have many more cases to come," said Glenn Cohen, a professor at Harvard Law School.

Snap shares dropped about 6%, while Google-parent Alphabet was down 2.2%.

(Reporting by Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; ​Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)