It begins: anyone who’s ever spent too much time on social media—or simply suffered any setbacks while simultaneously having social media accounts—can claim “addiction” and reasonably expect a big payout.
A landmark verdict in California has paved the way for that, and worse. After nearly two months of trial, a jury on Wednesday decided that Meta and Google are liable to the tune of $6 million for the psychological troubles plaguing a now 20-year-old identified as Kaley G.M.
In a civil suit, Kaley claimed that addiction to YouTube and other online platforms when she was a minor led to depression, anxiety, and body dysmorphia. Her case is part of a consolidated case representing nearly 2,500 plaintiffs, and the first to come before a jury.
The implications of this verdict go way beyond Kaley, and even way beyond those thousands of other plaintiffs. This case, along with one decided earlier this week in New Mexico, represents a legal and conceptual paradigm shift in how we consider social media.
Many people seem (or want) to believe that it’s simply not possible to exercise restraint when it comes to smartphones and social media, and that parents can’t possibly control kids’ use and exposure. The shift showcases an embrace of powerlessness and corporate blame when it comes to tech habits, and a rejection of ideas like personal and parental responsibility. We’ve imbued these platforms with an almost magical status, while expecting their proprietors to perform superhuman feats of saving people from themselves.
In this case, Kaley testified to heavy use of social media, starting young. But she also suffered from school and home life problems and was exposed to domestic violence at a young age.
To say social media is the root of her problems is to assume a causality that goes one way (heavy social media causes issues) when it could just as likely go the other way (girl turns to too much social media in the face of personal problems). It’s to assign a massive and mystical power to smartphones and corporations, while utterly rejecting more mundane vectors of responsibility for adolescent pain.
This could be a gold rush for personal injury lawyers. Bad personal choices? Poor parenting? Material factors? Nah—must be the Reels!
“Every tort lawyer in America is probably thinking about ripping down their ‘Been in a Crash?’ billboards right now and replacing them with ‘Addicted to the Internet?’ signs,” commented R Street Institute policy analyst Adam Thierer.
Kaley’s lawyers argued that Meta and Google were negligent in the way they designed their products, since they made them highly appealing to young people and failed to somehow limit excessive use. But using this as a standard for negligent product design is a slippery slope.
Social media companies are far from unique in trying to make products that people want to use or in failing to totally prevent problematic consumption. The addiction framework on display here could be used against food companies, streaming services, TV networks, game developers, fitness programs, and more.
These cases may be good for tort lawyers, but they’re a bad omen for the open internet and free speech.
“The minute we start treating speech as if it were just another physical product is the minute we hand the government the power to decide what we can read, watch, and say,” warned Ari Cohn of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) on X.
If social media platforms are liable for all the troubles of adolescence, it’s not long before banning teens or severely limiting their use becomes the only sensible response. And that means checking IDs or requiring biometric identification for all users—the end of anonymity online.
If social media platforms are liable for any harm someone could blame on their content, serious crackdowns on a wide range of material could become warranted. That means speech around controversial issues, diet and fitness, mental health topics, sexuality, and much more will be suppressed.
And if social media platforms are a “product,” rather than a venue for speech, we open the way for so much more government regulation of what can and cannot be said online.
Elizabeth Nolan Brown is a senior editor at Reason magazine and the author of Reason’s Sex & Tech newsletter.