When I was a kid, in 1989, 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling went missing, kidnapped near his home in rural Minnesota. His young face was on milk cartons everywhere.

An abduction like this was so unthinkable at the time, the tragedy is imprinted on my brain − along with millions of others in Minnesota and nationwide. About 27 years later, his killer pleaded guilty to federal child pornography charges and confessed that he abducted, sexually assaulted and murdered Wetterling.

Predators haven't gone away. They still lurk and target children. But with the rise of social media, the risk has expanded into a new space that can also help create online addictions and feed feelings of depression.

Two landmark cases confirm this.

On March 24, a jury in New Mexico ordered Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to pay $375 million after determining that Meta violated state law because it had misled users about platform safety and allegedly enabled child sexual exploitation.

On March 25, a jury in Los Angeles found Meta and Google's YouTube negligent in creating features that were addictive to a young woman and caused mental distress. Meta must pay $4.2 million in combined compensatory and punitive damages, and YouTube must pay $1.8 million.

These damning verdicts for Meta and other platforms serve as a warning for lawsuits that could lie ahead and for parents worried about the dangers that lurk in the digital........

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