A California jury found Meta and Google responsible for addictive social media algorithms.
A car passes Facebook's Meta logo on a sign at the company headquarters in October 2021, in Menlo Park, Calif. Meta and Youtube were found liable in a California trial for addictive algorithms.For years, the legal strategy against social media companies had largely focused on the content hosted on these sites, but that strategy hadn’t gained much traction in court.
A glimmer of progress emerged Wednesday when a California jury found that Meta and Google led to a young user’s mental health distress. That social media has contributed to the mental health crisis our young people are facing has been well documented over the years by researchers, news outlets and whistleblowers.This is the first time a case has successfully shifted the focus away from what users post to how platforms are built and the algorithms that keep people glued to their screens and scrolling for hours. Tech companies have avoided legal liability over the content that appears on their sites largely due to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the 1996 law that says tech companies are not legally responsible for what their users post. For too long, Section 230 has been interpreted so broadly that it has been all but impossible to hold tech companies accountable for the harm they have caused, even as social media evolved beyond simple forums into highly curated, algorithm-driven ecosystems.This case is notable because lawyers in the California case found a loophole in Section 230. Instead of arguing over the content on social media platforms, lawyers focused on their design — features like infinite scroll, autoplay and constant notifications that keep users hooked. This ruling echoes the playbook used against Big Tobacco in the 1990s, when companies were held accountable for knowingly making their products addictive and targeting young users in the process.The idea that tech companies wield outsized and potentially dangerous power is hardly new. In a 2021 ruling, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said in a concurrence that Section 230 had been stretched well beyond its original purpose, effectively granting tech companies immunity for hosting and curating content while avoiding the kinds of accountability that usually accompany that level of power. Even just logging on to your own social media accounts, it’s easy to see how much influence these platforms have on the content you are fed and how they nudge what you think and feel. There are already signs of what’s coming next. On Tuesday, a separate jury in New Mexico ordered Meta to pay $375 million in a case involving misleading claims about the safety of its social media sites and for enabling child exploitation. An avalanche of these trials is likely to hit both state and federal courts in the coming months as we watch how this unfolds. If this case is any indication, the era of total immunity for Big Tech may finally be coming to an end.Dallas Morning News editorials are written by the paper's Editorial Board and serve as the voice and view of the paper. The board considers a broad range of topics and is overseen by the Editorial Page Editor.Libraries, roads and City Hall: Here’s what came up in Dallas’ budget town halls
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