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Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction case

• rconti 6mo ago
  "YouTube argued that it was not a social media company and that its features were not designed to be addictive." Well, that's laughable.
• edwardsrobbie 6mo ago
  [dead]
• ChrisArchitect 6mo ago
  Notably a different case from the other one in New Mexico: Jury finds Meta liable in case over child sexual exploitation on its platforms https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47509984 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47509984
  • SpicyLemonZest 6mo ago
    And one with much deeper implications on how they operate. It's easy for Meta to just hire more moderators or treat reports of exploitation with higher priority; if this verdict stands, I think they have no realistic choice but to abandon usage targets.
    • aprilthird2021 6mo ago
      Realistically they will hire expensive lawyers, pay out hundreds of millions to billions in settlements, fire lots of people (workforce is predominantly American), etc. Even if they do what you're saying, lots of people who've used any Meta property in the last 15 years has a potentially viable case, and no future work can swat those away
• krunck 6mo ago
  https://archive.is/07nv5 https://archive.is/07nv5
• fraywing 6mo ago
  I'd hope the next iteration of social media tools humanity builds are less about reinforcing the individual ego and more about collective improvement, learning, and supporting the health of our species. Anecdote, but it does seem like a lot of younger folks I speak with are exhausted by the dark patterns and dopamine extraction that top-k social media platforms create. If agents/AI/bots inadvertently destroy the current incarnation of social media through noise, I think we'll be better for it.
  • idle_zealot 6mo ago
    > I'd hope the next iteration of social media tools humanity builds are less about reinforcing the individual ego and more about collective improvement, learning, and supporting the health of our species Do you have a mechanism for this in mind, incentives-wise? I can't see this making money.
    • slopinthebag 6mo ago
      It doesn't need to make money directly (and probably shouldn't). The incentives would be those which have motivated people throughout history: to create something which benefits humanity.
      • pixl97 6mo ago
        Ah yes, I too love free servers and bandwidth.
        • slopinthebag 6mo ago
          Lol, it doesn't have to run for free and servers are really powerful these days (especially if you don't use a slow language). There are other monetisation strategies besides exploiting users for profit.
          • pixl97 6mo ago
            It doesn't have to run for free, but if you're competing against anyone else running for free you've already lost the game as they suck the air out of the room with the network effect. Next, text only platforms are nice, but niche on the modern internet. People seem to love multimedia which takes tons of bandwidth/cpu. Paid for services don't mean spam free either. If it's worth people to pay for, it's worth spammers paying to get in and spam. Then you have all the questions on what happens if you grow, how do you deal with working with all the laws around the world, how do you deal with other legal issues. Having a site/service of any size can quickly become an expensive mess.
• deleted 6mo ago
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• strongpigeon 6mo ago
  Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/25/technology/social-media-trial-verdict.html?unlocked_article_code=1.V1A.EPNF.Ewhv1syq31rt&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/25/technology/social-media-t...
• mikece 6mo ago
  A good time to (re-)recommend the movie "The Social Dilemma".
• deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
• strongpigeon 6mo ago
  There is a fairly low amount of details about the case in the article. This NPR article [0] has a bit more, but it's still fairly sparse. Though it's interesting how Zuckerberg thought it was a good idea to say: "If people feel like they're not having a good experience, why would they keep using the product?". Given that this is a case about addiction, that feels like a shockingly bad thing to say in defense of your product. Can you imagine saying the same thing about oxycodone or cigarettes? [0] https://www.npr.org/2026/03/25/nx-s1-5746125/meta-youtube-social-media-trial-verdict https://www.npr.org/2026/03/25/nx-s1-5746125/meta-youtube-so...
  • easytiger 6mo ago
    Why not make personal responsibility illegal whilst we are at it. It is egregious that an individual can be held accountable for their own behaviours.
    • janalsncm 6mo ago
      How much personal responsibility should we expect children to have? Genuine question. Because there was a time where some people believed that it was ok for kids to drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes.
      • bryan_w 6mo ago
        > How much personal responsibility should we expect children to have? This is what parents are for.
        • janalsncm 6mo ago
          In that case, maybe we don’t need to card people anymore at the liquor store. If underage kids happen to buy, that’s the parents’ fault.
          • Ferret7446 6mo ago
            That's probably a good idea. That law never really did anything anyway, kids have never had problems getting their hands on alcohol
• apopapo 6mo ago
  [flagged]
  • BoredPositron 6mo ago
    In other countries that's the case so I don't know why it shouldn't be applicable in the US?
    • richwater 6mo ago
      People provide proof that other companies apply punitive damages to food companies knowinly adding sugar to food
      • BoredPositron 6mo ago
        8 countries in Europe, 4 in South America and 3 in Asia have an added sugar tax. So yes they did.
  • pixl97 6mo ago
    "Libertarian demands companies have unlimited freedom until a corporation with unlimited freedom repeatedly eats their face with no consequences, wonders why the face eating leopards they voted for are actually allowed"
  • deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
  • btmiller 6mo ago
    A full sentence answer for you: yes.
• 2OEH8eoCRo0 6mo ago
  Huge if upheld. This was the bellwether case for thousands of other similar cases.
• aprilthird2021 6mo ago
  I can't help but feel these are "revenge" verdicts. Public perception of these companies is dirt low, and there are so few levers the average person has to change what they feel is an increase in atomization, loneliness, breakdown of civic discourse, Cambridge Analytica level political targeting, misinformation, etc. Maybe the social media companies could do more to combat all these. They certainly have a level of profit compared to what they provide to the average person that makes people squirm. But does anyone believe for a second that YouTube is responsible for a person's internet / video watching addiction? It's like saying cable television is responsible for people who binge watch TV. It's hard to square this circle while sports gambling apps and Polymarket / Kalshi are tearing through the landscape right now with no real pushback
  • bitwank 6mo ago
    >But does anyone believe for a second that YouTube is responsible for a person's internet / video watching addiction? Yes? Is there an algorithm or not?
    • aprilthird2021 6mo ago
      By this logic your Grocery store can be sued for you gaining weight because they use an algorithm to time notifications to advertise to you on your phone if you install the app
      • pixel_popping 6mo ago
        Yes, and they should be if they promote products that are known to cause harm, this is why we have labels (or at least they try) to inform users that what they are buying is bad for their body and will harm their health, there is no such thing right now on Tiktok despite knowing it's likely to harm you. The fact that teenagers think it's normal to take a hundred selfie a day is a direct sign of psychological distress imo, for a young teen. We don't promote cigarettes (or at least in countries that have decent consumer laws) because it harms users, candies should be in the same category, it should probably exist but it shouldn't be promoted. When social media actively promote things that cause psychological harm while being aware (as we do have countless studies that proves it) of it to CHILDREN, then yes, screw them, we must force a change. We should also more forward, imagine now if instead of having a thousand of engineers & businessmen VS teenagers, we could leverage their intellect to actually help the world (and still make money out of them), it is possible, we must force innovation if corporations aren't complying.
• jmyeet 6mo ago
  I believe social media is on a collision course with an iceberg called Section 230. Broadly speaking, Section 230 differentiates between publishers and platforms. A platform is like Geocities (back in the day) where the platform provider isn't liable for the content as long as they staisfy certain requirements about havaing processes for taking down content when required. A bit like the Cox decision today, you're broadly not responsible for the actions of people using your service unless your service is explicitly designed for such things. A publisher (in the Section 230 sense) is like any media outlet. The publisher is liable for their content but they can say what they want, basically. It's why publishers tend to have strict processes around not making defamatory or false statements, etc. I believe that any site that uses an algorithmic news feed is, legally speaking, a publisher acting like a platform. Example: let's just say that you, as Twitter, FB, IG or Youtube were suddenly pro-Russian in the Ukraine conflict. You change your algorithm to surface and distribute pro-Russian content and suppress pro-Ukraine content. Or you're pro-Ukrainian and you do the reverse. How is this different from being a publisher? IMHO it isn't. You've designed your algorithm knowingly to produce a certain result. I believe that all these platforms will end up being treated like publishers for this reason. So, with today's ruling about platforms creating addiction, (IMHO) it's no different to surfacing content. You are choosing content to produce a certain outcome. Intentionally getting someone addicted is funtionally no different to changing their views on something. I actually blame Google for all this because they very successfully sold the idea that "the algorithm" ranks search results like it's some neutral black box but every behavior by an algorithm represents a choice made by humans who created that algorithm.
  • timdev2 6mo ago
    Why do you believe that "Section 230 differentiates between publishers and platforms"?
    • jmyeet 6mo ago
      Section 230(c)(i) [1]: > (c) (c)Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material > (1) Treatment of publisher or speaker > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. This is a protection for being a platform for third-party (including user-generated) content. Some more discussion on this distinction [2]: > Section 230’s legal protections were created to encourage the innovation of the internet by preventing an influx of lawsuits for user content. It goes on to talk about publishers, distributors and Internet Service Providers, the last of which I characterize as "platforms". By the way, my view here isn't a fringe view [3]: > One argument advanced by those who want to limit immunity for platforms is that these algorithms are a form of content creation, and should therefore be outside the scope of Section 230 immunity. Under this theory, social media companies could potentially be held liable for harmful consequences related to content otherwise created by a third party. This is exactly my view. [1]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230 [2]: https://bipartisanpolicy.org/article/section-230-online-platforms/ https://bipartisanpolicy.org/article/section-230-online-plat... [3]: https://www.naag.org/attorney-general-journal/the-future-of-section-230-what-does-it-mean-for-consumers/ https://www.naag.org/attorney-general-journal/the-future-of-...
• hash872 6mo ago
  At least even money that an appellate court throws this verdict out entirely. Reminder that the US is the only developed country that uses juries for civil trials- everywhere else, complex issues of business litigation are generally left to a panel of judges. It's not that hard to rile up a bunch of randomly impaneled jurors against Big Bad Corporation. The US is kind of infamous for its very large, very unpredictable civil verdicts. There's an incredibly long history of juries racking up shockingly large verdicts against companies, only for an appellate court to throw the whole case out as unreasonable. Not even close to the final word in the American judicial system. Edit to include: I mean this is coming the same day as the Supreme Court throwing out the piracy case against Cox Communications 9-0. Remember that this case originated with $1 billion dollar jury verdict against them! Was reversed by an appeals court 5 years later and completely invalidated today. Juries should not handle complex civil litigation, I'm sorry
  • aprilthird2021 6mo ago
    Thanks for this take. Also explains why this did not result in much stock price movement today
    • zahlman 6mo ago
      Also at least partially explained by being priced in. The trial was known about and given the conditions described in GP it's not surprising that the verdict went this way.
  • Papazsazsa 6mo ago
    [dead]
  • jeffbee 6mo ago
    Yeah there are so many reasons this could be reversed on appeal. Whether the judge correctly held questions of section 230, and the First Amendment, is not obvious.
  • bsimpson 6mo ago
    The shotgun approach (suing FB, TikTok, Snapchat, and Google simultaneously) makes this sound as ridiculous as the punchline "woman sues McDonalds for coffee being too hot" (distinct from that actual case, which was less ridiculous than the headline). Suing Facebook for systematically behaving badly is one thing, if you can prove it and prove it harmed you. Suing _everybody_ is one random person getting rich for… being mad at the world she was born into?
• woah 6mo ago
  Are there any takeaways here for builders of social media applications who are not Facebook or Google? Is this a warning to not make your newsfeed algorithm "too engaging" or is it only really relevant for big companies?
  • vaylian 6mo ago
    I'm not an authority on this matter. But if you say "I can stop any time", and it is not true, then you have a problem.
• ApolloFortyNine 6mo ago
  This just seems ripe for selective enforcement if not codified in law. I agree the algorithm they use can be addicting, but it's because it's simply good at providing content the user wants to consume. Besides a general 'don't be too good' I'm really not sure what companies should do about it. It just seems like it'll lead to some judges allowing rulings against companies they don't like. Television's goal was always viewer retention as well, they were just never able to target as well as you can on the internet.
  • carabiner 6mo ago
    Nukes are the same as knives, just different in magnitude. Should one have special rules?
    • gzread 6mo ago
      I think in America the second amendment makes it legal to own a nuke.
  • kelseyfrog 6mo ago
    I see it as similar to the public health crisis created when protonated nicotine salts made their way into vapes along with flavors allowing 2-10x more nicotine to be delivered and the innovation that made Juul so popular with children. The subsequent effects - namely being easier to consume and more addictive - eventually resulted in legislation catching up, and restrictions on what Juul could do. It being "too good" of a product parallels what we're seeing in social media seven years later. Like most[all] all public health problems we see individualization of responsibility touted as a solution. If individualization worked, it would have already succeeded. Nothing prevents individualization except its failure of efficacy. What does work is systems-level thinking and considering it an epidemiological problem rather than a problem of responsibility. Responsibility didn't work with the AIDS crisis, it didn't work on Juul, and it's not going to work on social media. It is ripe for public health strategies. The biggest impediment to this is people who mistakingly believe that negative effects represent a personal moral failure.
  • tmpz22 6mo ago
• dmix 6mo ago
  > During his first-ever appearance before a jury in February, Meta's chairman and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, relied on his company's longstanding policy of not allowing users under the age of 13 on any of its platforms. > When presented with internal research and documents showing that Meta knew young children were in fact using its platforms, Zuckerberg said he "always wished" for faster progress to identify users under 13. He insisted the company had reached the "right place over time". Soon there will be government IDs required to use social media sites because parent's can't take phones away from their kids.
• Handy-Man 6mo ago
  IMO, parents share just as much blame here, if not more. Giving your kids independence doesn't mean being oblivious to what they're doing online. Too many parents confuse hands-off parenting with not parenting at all.
  • bluedevil2k 6mo ago
    Have you met kids? They’re devious, tech knowledgeable, and scheming and can find ways around any rule. Plus, no matter how good of a parent you are, you’re somewhat at the mercy of their friends’ parents as well. I can block TikTok from my daughter’s phone, but can’t block her from watching her friend’s phone while she’s out of the house.
  • intended 6mo ago
    I dont think parents going up against psychologists, data scientists, product managers and software engineers with the best pay in the world is any kind of fair fight.
• dzink 6mo ago
  Read the book “Careless People” if you have a chance - according to the book, social media companies figured out they have real leverage with politicians since they can influence elections. As a result they are actively pushing for far right candidates to reduce their own taxation and regulation.
  • Zigurd 6mo ago
    I don't think this accelerationism/fascism hobby of many tech bros is going to age well.
  • prepend 6mo ago
    That book was so lame and the author leaves out how she profited millions and then only complained after she was fired. Its also funny how they “discovered” they were influencing elections after they influenced the 2008 and 2012 elections. How did the author not know this when she sought out and joined the company in like 2013! The parts about playing Settlers of Catan with Zuckerberg was funny. I wonder what his side of the story was and if people were really letting him win.
    • lokar 6mo ago
      I thought she discussed her pay/stock, what a big deal it was to her and how that affected her decisions very openly.
      • prepend 6mo ago
        She did write about how she decided to stay because of the money. Her book doesn’t cover the amount and I couldn’t find anything public where she discloses. I figured it was a lot based on standard FB salary+stock and the years she was there.
    • alex1138 6mo ago
      I'm not going to attack you but I do just want to highlight analogous comments of "she could have left" - She was trying to work to change things - She was pregnant and otherwise had young children and needed the money
• dlcarrier 6mo ago
  This is the kind of stuff that is causing them to push for mandatory identity verification laws. If they are being held liable for the the desires of their users, they're being forced micromanage the affairs of their customers, which preclude anonymous usage.
  • intended 6mo ago
    Meta is not pushing for mandatory age verification laws.They are pushing for age verification burdens to be pushed to the OS / App Store layer.
  • 13415 6mo ago
    Not only that, in my opinion the many positive reactions to this decision are a sign of a decline of personal responsibility and a desire of people to be managed by the government and treated like cattle. Blaming everyone else but themselves for personal problems and failures has become the default for many people.
    • gzread 6mo ago
      Why is it bad to want the system to push people towards healthy behaviour but it's totally okay to want the system to push people towards unhealthy behaviour?
      • 13415 6mo ago
        I want "the system" to neither push people towards healthy nor towards unhealthy behavior if by "push" you mean "force by law." I want a system that maximizes personal freedom and individual responsibility. I'm fine with "the system" providing advice and nudging, though.
        • gzread 6mo ago
          Would you say it should be a property owner's individual responsibility to protect their property from thieves?
• xvxvx 6mo ago
  In before someone says ‘blame the parents’ and not the multi-billion dollar companies who’ve spent decades targeting children for lifelong addiction, ignoring the negative effects on their mental health.
  • kakacik 6mo ago
    The thing is, it should be both. Parents often give too little fucks for long term welfare of their children, often also guilty of same vices. Issue is, these addictions are way more destructive to young forming mind than to adults. Nobody having small kids now had fb or instagram access when they were 5, did they. Maybe you don't do this. Certainly I don't. But when looking around, its much less rosy and... lets say in blue collar families its too common to drug kids with screens so parents have off time. Heck, some are even proud how modern parents they are. Any good advice is successfully ignored, and ideas of passing some proper time with kids instead are skillfully avoided. People got lazy and generally expect miracles from life without putting in any miracle-worth efforts. Companies just maximize their profits till laws allows them (and then some more), and expecting nice moral behavior by default is dangerously naive and never true.
    • 12_throw_away 6mo ago
      Consider that the insane growth in the cost of living - especially childcare - combined with wage stagnation means that now the vast majority of families have 2 parents with full-time jobs, keeping them away for their families for much longer than before. Consider that childcare is much, much harder to even get into now than in decades past. Consider also that "EdTech" means that nearly every child needs to be on an internet equipped-device at all times. But sure, "Parents often give too little fucks for long term welfare of their children", that's definitely it. Parents just hate their kids! What a useful perspective you've brought to the discussion.
      • kakacik 6mo ago
        Look, I am in this category too, and all that high cost and parents far applies for me too. I live in Switzerland, country of many wonderful things in society but state helping young parents ain't one of the strong points, in contrary. Both me (cca senior banking position in IT) and my wife (doctor) have intense time consuming jobs. All family is very far and can rarely help. Still, given all that, I don't do cheap excuses like that. Its pathetic and weak and simply untrue. Things are harder but thats it, not impossible like your side of argument wants to conveniently claim. Quality time well spent with kids is highly proportional to outcome of raising efforts. No way to hide from that simple fact, and nowhere to hide from results of parenting, everybody can see them in plain sight. But if you setup your life so that pathetic things like career are your upmost importance and you have no time nor energy for anything else, those are your choices and thats fine. Just not getting why folks then have kids, just to skip on actually raising them and then whine how unruly they are, raised by toxic groups with no role models. Having and raising kids is not some fucking checkbox to tick and move on, its 20+ years full commitment and biggest achievement in one's life, or biggest failure. Worth some proper effort, no?
• pow_ext 6mo ago
  Apps like instagram and YouTube should be required at least to give an option to disable reels and shorts
  • polskibus 6mo ago
    Don’t forget WhatsApp. Kids are allowed to have WhatsApp as messaging but they get fed videos there too. There is no way to really disable them . Also this be allowed as parental supervision, not something that kids can override.
  • ryandvm 6mo ago
    There should be a law to require the ability to disable algorithmic customization of content. If these apps are so compelling it shouldn't take a Spark cluster riffing on my private viewing habits to come up with content for me. I don't recall a lot of complaints about Facebook or Instagram when it was actually your friends' content. But now it's force-feeding everybody their own "guilty pleasure" viewing material 24 hours a day. It's fucking sick.
    • sumedh 6mo ago
      > disable algorithmic customization of content. What does that even mean?
      • r0bbbo 6mo ago
        I assume they mean a similar experience to browsing /r/popular on Reddit. You're getting a feed that isn't tailored to your browsing history, likes or preferences. It's less addicting and the company doesn't need to know anything about you to provide the experience.
  • seydor 6mo ago
    Perhaps we need more social activism (remember that?) to stop people falling into this kind of addiction. I remember anti-drugs campaigning , they were everywhere. Phone addictions are not taken nearly as seriously.
• nickvec 6mo ago
  Wow, so does this pave the way for massive class action lawsuits? Not familiar with how precedents like this play out long term.
• eagsalazar2 6mo ago
  So... should we all sue Youtube and Meta now? This is a semi-serious, follow this precedent to its logical conclusion, question.
• eagsalazar2 6mo ago
  This is ultimately about the inherently pernicious nature of unregulated capitalism. Businesses want money. They get that by manipulating you, the consumer, to consume their services. They are "ethically" bound by (given an excuse by) fiduciary duty to pursue profit callously. The result, in these corner cases where eating people is profitable? Shelob.
• Ohkay 6mo ago
  How about optimize for engagement with people you know irl and not influencers and media?
• itissid 6mo ago
  As long as we continue to value making money for shareholders above all else, such and possibly worst perversions will continue to happen. Capital has found all sorts of ways to make all sorts of questionable things addictive to sell. I feel, and it's obvious to most that the only way a society can truly reform is by a shared consensus over their value system. This verdict could be thrown out by the appelette court(i feel it would be), so this is not the culmination of values resulting in what many hoped for. It does not seem to me that this is a country where consensus on what, if anything, to put above capital will come about any time soon and with capital it's always been ask for forgiveness rather than permission. The only time true justice that happens is when the harm becomes obvious being the shadow of a doubt(e.g. smoking) that even a monkey can tell it's time, game is up. Perhaps if one day we can look into the brains of people with the clarity of glass and the precision of electrons and tell, will that time come when we all recognize how bad of an idea social media was.
• parsimo2010 6mo ago
  I don’t feel good about this case- on the one hand, I’m all for sticking it to big corporations. On the other hand, nobody has claimed that Meta and YouTube were doing anything illegal, so this case is different from civil suits brought after a criminal case finds someone guilty. This is a case where the jury decided they don’t like how two corporations acted, and are just giving money to one person. Why does this plaintiff in particular deserve this money? I’ve argued in the past that the right way to create the change in corporations we want is to change the laws, and people have made valid points that Congress has basically given up on doing that. But even so, civil cases with fines don’t seem like that way to make lasting change. In the analogues to the tobacco fights, there are LAWS that regulate tobacco company behaviors as a result. The civil case here isn’t going to result in any law. So what are companies supposed to do? Tiptoe around some ill defined social boundary and hope they don’t get sued? Because apparently the defense of, “no I didn’t target that person and I didn’t break any laws” is still going to get you fined. What happens when a company from a conservative location gets sued in a liberal location for causing a social ill? Oh, we’re cool with that. But what if a company from a liberal location gets sued in a conservative location for the same thing? Oh, maybe we don’t like that as much. I’m taking the libertarian side here. I know plenty of people who don’t watch TV, don’t use Facebook, and I know plenty of people that recognized that they were spending too much time on digital platforms and decided to quit or cut back. So a healthy person can self regulate on these apps, I’ve seen it and done it. I’m just not sure how much responsibility Meta and YouTube bear in my mind. If they’re getting fined $3M plus some TBD punitive amount, are we saying that this 20 year old person lost out on earning that much money in their life or would need to spend $3M on therapy because of Meta or YouTube? It feels a little steep off a fine for one person. If Meta and YouTube really were/are making addictive products, wouldn’t a lot more people be harmed? Shouldn’t this be a class action suit where anyone with mental trauma or depression be included? I don’t know the details of the case, but I highly doubt that this one plaintiff was targeted specifically, and I doubt their case is that unique. I read tons of news articles about cyber bullying, depression, suicide attempts, and tech addiction. Does every one get to sue Meta and YouTube for $3M now?
  • lokar 6mo ago
    The case was brought under product liability law. If I sell you gizmo, and I know, or should know, that using the gizmo could seriously harm you, and I don't tell you or do anything about it, I am liable for damages you incur.
• jraby3 6mo ago
  When I was a kid, tv commercials were heavily censored and the tv channel could and would be fined immediately if something inappropriate was shown. How is it that these days social media can circumvent all these safeguards and then somehow blame the parents if a kid is watching something inappropriate on an app designed for kids (like YouTube kids)? The issue is that politicians are beholden to social media companies because they can literally get them or their opponent elected. After reading Careless People, I was amazed at how leaders of so many countries wanted to meet Zuck because he wields so much power. I really hope this ruling is the beginning of the end of the free rein they've had.
  • crowcroft 6mo ago
    Don't get me started. So many existing laws just seem to be conveniently ignored because... it's 'digital'? In a lot of countries there are specific laws banning the deliberate targeting of advertising to children (and in contexts where you would reach children, heavily regulated), but for over a decade Meta would allow you to target within the ranges of 13 to 18 years old. That's to say nothing of the scams and deepfake celebrity ads they let run. Imagine if a deepfake ad of Warren Buffet promoting an investment opportunity ran on TV, the network would get sued into oblivion. On Meta though, there's no repercussions.
• prepend 6mo ago
  I think this is going to end up with a huge chunk paid out to state health departments for the foreseeable future. Kind of like how tobacco companies now pay out billions every year and its a major source of funding for states. Hopefully this means more health services available. But it will just serve like an ongoing tax.
  • lokar 6mo ago
    AIUI, this particular case is a pilot for about 2,000 similar (but not similar enough to be combined into a class action) cases. They are not actions by state or local governments for damages they have received, as was the case with tobacco.
    • prepend 6mo ago
      I expect state governments to follow up. The similar case about child predators was brought by NM’s attorney general.
• bondolo 6mo ago
  Negligent doesn't begin to describe their behaviour.
• hsuduebc2 6mo ago
  I strongly doubt that "negligent" is the proper word for "carefully designed to induce as much addictive behavior".
• cat-turner 6mo ago
  I actually quit Instagram because I found it so addictive. Wild that there's a case. Parents need to just take away phones from children. Simple as that.
• akabul0us 6mo ago
  > which could expose the internet giants to further financial damages and force changes to their products This is so wildly untrue, it's either downright deception on the part of the NYT or they simply don't know how to do math. In this case the judgement was for $3M. To keep the numbers simple for the sake of this comparison, let's not get into the 70/30 split of this amount and just imagine that YouTube (Google) ((Alphabet)) had to pay the entire amount. Their revenue (again, keeping it simple, don't @ me) for 2025 was $350B. Humans don't typically conceptualize the difference between millions and billions very easily, so let's knock everything down a few orders of magnitude. At that rate they take in around a billion dollars a day. So imagine this as a person who takes in about a thousand dollars a day, and has a yearly salary of $350,000 (quite comfortable to live on, while not being obscene). Now apply the same math to the amount they have to pay, and what do you get? A grand total of $0.03. You'd have to do it with a bank transfer (or use a nickel and overpay considerably). I make considerably less than $350K/yr, and I can still confidently say that if I had to pay a fine of 3¢, that wouldn't just make me not take the fine and the court that issued it seriously, it would have the opposite effect it's intended to. I would now see that it costs me next to nothing to keep doing things the way I always have, whereas if I were to change things like the very nature of my business to avoid the fine, that could have a potential serious effect. What the court has done is demand that when Google and Meta spit on their customers, they also throw a few pennies in their change cup to show how sorry they are, while changing nothing and going full speed ahead.
• pseingatl 6mo ago
  I think all important public policy decisions should be left to random personal injury courtrooms, as long as the PI lawyers collect their customary fee. It's silly to let a regulator or legislative body butt in and so prevent the PI lawyers from collecting their cash. So what if you have no say in the result?
• senaevren 6mo ago
  [dead]
• p5v 6mo ago
  I’ve been thinking about this a lot while building Murmel (https://murmel.social https://murmel.social). One thing we wanted to avoid from day one was the “infinite engagement machine” model, so instead of pushing algorithmic slop, we just surface links that are already being shared by people you follow on Bluesky and Mastodon. It ends up feeling much closer to “what’s interesting in my corner of the web right now?” and much less like a system trying to keep you trapped inside it. Small scope, obviously, but I think more social tools should feel like utilities, not casinos.
• yacin 6mo ago
  this has to be the first of many right? fingers crossed this leads to some meaningful change.
  • 2OEH8eoCRo0 6mo ago
    It's a huge deal because it was the bellwether case for over 1,000 other similar cases.
    • yacin 6mo ago
      ah yup: > It comes on the heels of a Delaware court decision clearing Meta’s insurers of responsibility for damages incurred from “several thousand lawsuits regarding the harm its platforms allegedly cause children” — a ruling that could leave it and other tech titans on the hook for untold future millions.
      • trollbridge 6mo ago
        Yep. The insurance covers accidents and negligence, not deliberate decisions to impose harm to children for financial gain.
      • guzfip 6mo ago
        Sounds too good to be true. I’ll hold my breath.
      • AlienRobot 6mo ago
        I wonder at which point do children become such a liability for platforms that it's easier to just ban all children altogether. Children don't have disposable income to buy ads/subscriptions. They don't have experience to write about. The only thing they have that adults don't is time which translates into engagement metrics. In an ideal world, the adults that buy/manage the computers would create age-restricted account for children, and the OS would give this information to the browser, which would just transmit it via HTTP. This is the safest method to verify ages. If an operating system doesn't want to support this, it's ultimately the adult's responsibility to install one that supports it. This would mean there would be no burden on the adults (the majority of the planet) to verify their ages, so there would be no burden on the platforms to restrict ages either. If platforms could verify ages without inconveniencing their main user base, I wonder if platforms would just start banning all minors, or if there is some reason to allow minors in the platform that justifies all the liability surrounding them.
• onlyrealcuzzo 6mo ago
  How is any app/website that 1) appeals to kids, 2) sells attention, 3) does A/B testing and/or has a self-learning distribution algorithm NOT guilty of this?
  • embedding-shape 6mo ago
    I guess ultimately it depends on if the app/website authors do so "negligently" or not. > Jurors were charged with determining whether the companies acted negligently in designing their products and failed to warn her of the dangers. So if you do so while providing warnings and controls for people, that might make it OK in the eyes of the law?
  • sampullman 6mo ago
    I think there's a little more nuance than that, but it seems roughly correct. Wouldn't it be better if apps/websites targeting kids didn't use A/B testing to be more addictive?
    • steve-atx-7600 6mo ago
      For context, facebook is so dystopian when I login once every few years that I’m not sure I’ll ever use it again. And, I hate wading through the YouTube cesspool to find some educational content I like. But, I don’t think it makes sense to ban a/b testing or optimization in general. Some company could use it, for example, to figure out how to teach math to kids in a way that’s as engaging as possible. This would be “more addictive” technically.
      • sampullman 6mo ago
        That's a good point, I'm not 100% sure it's worth throwing away the potentially beneficial uses. There might not be a solution that's both feasible to implement and avoids banning useful things. In the end I usually come back to it being the parent's responsibility to monitor usage, limit screen time, etc., but it hasn't been working so well in practice.
    • ramon156 6mo ago
• ramesh31 6mo ago
  I've heard about "landmark" cases against these companies over and over again for the last decade. There seems to be at least one every couple of years. And yet literally nothing has ever happened or changed.
  • petcat 6mo ago
    Since these are civil lawsuits, it just takes more people coming forward to sue. There are plenty of cases where a jury found a defendant liable for damages only for the defendant to continue the bad behavior and subsequent juries awarding ever-increasing and compounding punitive damages. Big Tobacco and Purdue Pharma (went bankrupt) are examples of this pattern. Monsanto was famously hit hard with massive "repeater" damages after they continued selling and marketing Roundup despite prior judgements. The exact same can happen to Big Tech. The goal is to get them to stop the bad behavior now.
  • mrbluecoat 6mo ago
    I feel the same way. They're just going to appeal the case until they find a layer of the legal system where they have leverage.
• pautasso 6mo ago
  Everyone now posting on social media about how the sentence "Social Media is Addictive" is going viral.
• paulkon 6mo ago
  Just needs a health warning label, like on alcohol or cigarettes. Then onto the high sugar products, and a quarter of the grocery store
  • alexlesuper 6mo ago
    We have health warnings for food that contains lots of sugar, fat and/or sodium in Canada
  • ddoolin 6mo ago
    If we want to compare it to alcohol/cigarettes, then kids shouldn't be allowed to use this either.
    • pearlsontheroad 6mo ago
      and the government should tax it accordingly
      • ibejoeb 6mo ago
        I don't think that you can practically expect to tax speech.
        • jf22 6mo ago
          You can tax reach though.
• Hobadee 6mo ago
  Is the addictiveness of social media great? No. But the blame shouldn't be placed squarely on the companies either. What happened to personal responsibility? I was addicted to Facebook, I realized it, and I disconnected from it. I had withdrawals for a while (pulling out my phone and trying to open the app I had deleted without really thinking about what I was doing) but I quit. I know I am addicted to YouTube shorts, so I stay away from them. Occasionally I'll go on a bender and a few hours will slip by without me realizing, but while I know YouTube is designing them to be addictive, I blame myself for falling for it. There are plenty of things in life that can be addicting; drugs, sex, money, power, adrenaline, entertainment, technology... The list goes on. If we remove everything addicting from life, you better believe something else will rise up to take its place. The solution therefore isn't to remove everything addicting from life, but rather to raise everyone with the forethought to know what might be addictive, the self-awareness to realize when you are addicted to something, and the self-control (and support systems if and when necessary) to stop.
  • simonh 6mo ago
    The problem is that internal communications inside these companies raised concerns about the manipulativeness, and even deceptiveness of the algorithms and tactics they were using. They weren't just consciously creating an attractive platform, they were consciously creating a manipulative platform.
  • nkrisc 6mo ago
    Yes, personal responsibility is important. That doesn't mean we need to allow companies to attempt to addict as many people as they can. The question we should be asking: are these technologies a net-positive to society?
  • pearlsontheroad 6mo ago
    Everyone should at least be a conscientious junkie.
  • imiric 6mo ago
    On one hand: sure. On the other, it's very different when companies explicitly design their products to be as addictive as possible. We've been through this with Big Tobacco already. Nicotine and other tobacco substances are addictive on their own, but tobacco companies were prosecuted for deliberately making cigarettes as addictive as possible, besides also marketing to children. The parallels with Big Tech and social media are undeniable.
• gervwyk 6mo ago
  now do Candy Crush..
• baggy_trough 6mo ago
  Doritos now liable for creating a good tasting chip? This is madness.
  • bknight1983 6mo ago
    Normally I don't see people walking down the street staring at their Doritos
  • OptionOfT 6mo ago
    One could argue that the ultra processed food industry is doing exactly what the tobacco industry did wrt to making their food addictive. There is a difference in creating a food that tastes good vs creating a food that tastes good, but instantly wants you to eat the whole bag.
  • bogdanoff_2 6mo ago
    addictiveness != enjoyment Although to some extent they're correlated, sometimes the things that are most enjoyable you wouldn't describe as "addicting" and vice-versa. Eating a nice full meal is more enjoyable than eating doritos on your couch, but you wouldn't describe it as addicting. If anything, I find my experience of youtube today to be less enjoyable than in the past
  • Ajedi32 6mo ago
    Yeah, people keep making the comparison to cigarettes but to me this is wildly different. Cigarettes directly cause physical harm and even death. Social media can sometimes, under certain circumstances, depending on who exactly you're interacting with on social media, indirectly contribute to emotional harm. Cigarettes are also physically addictive. Your body actually becomes dependent on them and will throw a fit if you try to stop using them. Social media is only "addictive" in the loose sense that all fun, mentally engaging activities are. I'm not saying social media is fine for kids and we shouldn't do anything to reduce their use of it (TV and video games can be equally unhealthy IMO). I'm not even necessarily against legislation on the subject. But there's a huge difference between fining a company for breaking a law, and fining them for making a perfectly legal product "too fun" because you let your kids spend all their time on it and that turned out to be unhealthy. This type of civil litigation where the courts effectively create and enforce ex post facto laws based on their opinion about whether perfectly reasonable, 100% legal actions indirectly contribute to bad outcomes is not a great aspect of our legal system IMO.
• absoluteunit1 6mo ago
  Oh man if they think YouTube and Instagram are addicting they should see what Roblox does lol
  • embedding-shape 6mo ago
    As someone who maybe fired about Roblox once like three years ago, what does Roblox do that is way more addicting than YouTube and Instagram, and also I guess they're ignoring reports showing the harm even more than YouTube and Instagram, if I understand you correctly?
    • absoluteunit1 6mo ago
      It's an interactive world - where games can be built by anyone (I personally know/met some of the devs) and all the games have some randomization/gambling mechanics involved. Lootboxes is just one tiny example. Infinite novely - there's literally infinite number of games one can play. I don't have time right now to provide a full/quality answer with more examples - you can do a bit of seraching online to learn more. Also from personal expeirence as well (from family and friends). When their kids comeover they have tiktok on their phone and roblox on their laptop
      • embedding-shape 6mo ago
        Right, but that sounds like a bunch of video games. Question is, is Roblox specifically designed to be addictive, like Facebook/Instagram/TikTok? And if they are, did the companies willfully ignore reports about how dangerous it was? If the answer is just "No" to both of those questions, then it sounds like a regular video game that can be addictive (like everything else), but it wasn't specifically designed to be addictive, like some social networks are designed.
        • fosco 6mo ago
          Aside from daily login rewards, loot boxes, gamifying gambling behaviors and FOMO designed micro purchases? Roblox is bad and many times if your nearby is absolutely not appropriate for kids and I’m quite liberal on what’s appropriate beyond normalizing emotional damage. https://pure.psu.edu/en/publications/the-system-is-made-to-inherently-push-child-gambling-in-my-opinio https://pure.psu.edu/en/publications/the-system-is-made-to-i... The funniest one? The 10-k discussing legal issues as risk regarding addiction Hardwick et al. (2025) “They’re Scamming Me”: How Children Experience and Conceptualize Harm in Game Monetization https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/5164006.pdf?abstractid=5164006&mirid=1 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/5164006.pdf?abstra... Kou, Hernandez, Gui (2025) “The System is Made to Inherently Push Child Gambling in my Opinion”: Child Safety, Monetization, and Moderation on Roblox https://pure.psu.edu/en/publications/the-system-is-made-to-inherently-push-child-gambling-in-my-opinio/ https://pure.psu.edu/en/publications/the-system-is-made-to-i... Song et al. (2025) How Predatory Monetization Designs Manifest in Child-Directed Online Games (SOUPS 2025) https://www.usenix.org/system/files/soups2025-song.pdf https://www.usenix.org/system/files/soups2025-song.pdf Kou & Gui (2023) Harmful Design in the Metaverse and How to Mitigate It: A Case Study of User-Generated Virtual Worlds on Roblox https://sites.psu.edu/healthandplay/files/2023/05/Harmful-Design-in-the-Metaverse-and-How-to-Mitigate-it-A-Case-Study-of-User-Generated-Virtual-Worlds-on-Roblox.pdf https://sites.psu.edu/healthandplay/files/2023/05/Harmful-De... Tunca et al. (2025) Navigating parental concerns in children’s engagement with Roblox https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12821821/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12821821/ Roblox Corporation (2024 Form 10-K) https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1315098/000131509825000033/rblx-20241231.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1315098/000131509825... I find this hilarious. Not all games are created equal, I loved Zelda tears of the kingdom and the sounds and rewarding game were in my opinion addictive however they are not in the same league as roblox The best part is when you get a cohort of a few families to go camping and teenage daughter forced dad to drive 45 minutes each way for cell service to avoid breaking the daily login chain. I don’t think people appreciate how these mechanisms impact society as a whole
• bogdanoff_2 6mo ago
  The solution to this would be a law forcing these sites to allow third-party suggestion algorithms, so that you can choose who and how content is being suggested to you. It could be perhaps as simple as allowing third-party websites and apps for watching Youtube on your phone. And it's okay if this would be a premium paid feature, so there's no counter argument that "it costs them money to host videos". This is not an entirely new idea either. Before Spotify became popular, people would integrate Last.FM into their media players to get music recommendation based on their listening history, and you could listen to music via YouTube directly on the last.fm website.
  • dmbche 6mo ago
    Or algorithms have to be submitted and approved by a government body before being allowed to be implemented and are frequently audited
    • PokemonNoGo 6mo ago
      I guess this is the only way. I don't think we need novel approach and I don't consider this a novel one since we already have government agencies verifying approved processes in other areas so why not content distrubution.
  • outime 6mo ago
    Virtually nobody would choose to pay a subscription for the non-addictive app version, and I'd even say this suggestion is a bit insulting to anyone who isn't high-income.
    • bitwank 6mo ago
      I will never pay a subscription for the current clickbaity slop. I might if the algorithm were better, closer to YouTube of 10 years ago, when it would suggest lectures, artfully done film shorts, and overall more interesting, high quality content.
      • 6mo ago
• GardenLetter27 6mo ago
  Mandatory age verification is coming.
  • highstep 6mo ago
    otherwise know as mandatory identification
  • _kidlike 6mo ago
    my thoughts exactly... this "verdict" came with very suspicious timing.
  • 2OEH8eoCRo0 6mo ago
    Good. Long overdue
• superkuh 6mo ago
  [flagged]
  • ceejayoz 6mo ago
    Parent poster has some… interesting views on addiction. Specifically, an extremely narrow view of what counts, that rules out things like gambling and porn addiction. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=superkuh%20addiction&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=superkuh%20addiction&type=comm...
    • elteto 6mo ago
      You are watching astroturfing in real time.
      • superkuh 6mo ago
        I'm watching a bunch of people with only a lay understanding of the word try to invoke the use of violent force because of ignorant memes based on outdated 1970s concepts. And it's really frustrating. I can assure you I'm the most human person of human persons with no corporate affiliations. I just happen to understand neurochemistry. https://www.techdirt.com/2026/03/26/everyone-cheering-the-social-media-addiction-verdicts-against-meta-should-understand-what-theyre-actually-cheering-for/ https://www.techdirt.com/2026/03/26/everyone-cheering-the-so... "Everyone Cheering The Social Media Addiction Verdicts Against Meta Should Understand What They’re Actually Cheering For" The idea that "porn addiction" exists is entirely a social media concept with no support in the literature or medical standards. It's pushed by for-profit treatment groups just like "anti-gay" camps are. Gambling disorder, of course, is grandfathered in.
        • ceejayoz 6mo ago
          For someone obsessed with the definition of “addiction” I’d ask where the “violent force” you describe is occurring.
• nottorp 6mo ago
  Just kids? Not adults?
• bknight1983 6mo ago
  When you put something out there, there's a question of ownership for how people end up using it. - Some think that "if you use it incorrectly, it's your fault" and probably agree with the statement that Palantir is not an evil software and that one must "change the administration". - Some think that "if you use it incorrectly, it's the creator's fault" and then you have safety labels on everything (see Prop 65). It's a spectrum of risk between the user and the creator. My opinion is that there's enough scientific evidence that social media to show that it has a negative impact on kids and teenagers as their brains are still developing. I think a social media ban on kids is a good thing (similar to a driver's license or age of drinking).
  • another-dave 6mo ago
    If you deliberately design your platform to be addicting then you can't say people who become addicted are "using it wrong" though.
• robinanil 6mo ago
  I have a somewhat unusual vantage point on this. I'm a former Google engineer, now running a children's mental health startup (Emora Health), and my toddler is already on YouTube Kids. So this verdict hits on every axis for me.I wrote up my full take here [1], but the short version: I don't think the "Big Tobacco moment" framing that NYT is pushing actually holds up. Litigation is negative reinforcement, and if you've ever tried telling a toddler "no" you know how well that works long-term.The families in this case absolutely deserve to be heard. The harm is real. But courts can only punish — they can't redesign a recommendation algorithm. The change has to come from people who understand these systems building better ones. Haidt has been saying for years what this verdict just confirmed. The evidence was never the bottleneck. The will to design differently was. I will give you a simple experiment. Try blocking Blippi from YouTube Kids, man, it's crazy, even if you block the main Blippi and Moonbug channels. 100s of channels have Blippi content cross-posted. And it keeps popping up. I know it's easy to build a Blippi block feature using AI that blocks across channels. Thats the kind of solutions we need. I know we have the tools. Just need intent and purpose [1] https://www.emorahealth.com/clinical-insights/social-media-verdict-what-parents-should-know https://www.emorahealth.com/clinical-insights/social-media-v...
  • acmecorps 6mo ago
    Just a tangent, interesting that you brought up Blippi. Any issues that you have with Blippi if you don't mind me asking? :D
    • robinanil 6mo ago
      Ha — the guy is hyper. But I'll give him this: he introduces my kid to garbage trucks, excavators, fire trucks. I'm not physically taking my toddler to see all of those all the time My issue is with YouTube's UX. I watch an episode with my son, we're singing along, he's excited about putting out the fire. Episode ends. Even with autoplay off, the next recommended videos show up — and of course he wants to watch the next one. So I block Blippi. Except Blippi's main channel cross-posts into Moonbug, which cross-posts into hundreds of other channels. It's like trying to kill a hydra. Here's what gets me: YouTube already does content fingerprinting for DRM enforcement in the music industry. The technology to let me block Blippi across every channel — and turn it back on when I want to exists. They just haven't built it for parents. My point that we can build systems designed for children if we had the intent
• nlarion 6mo ago
  There is no personal responsibility left in America. I have a child. It's my job to teach him and watch what he watches and does. I guess I am the only one who thinks this way. Good luck having the parental government raise your child. Parody: I let my child have cocaine and now they're addicted!!!!! Hilarious.
  • freshtake 6mo ago
    How old is your child? Younger than 6-8 it's easy to monitor what they're watching and enforce limits. By age 9-10 it isn't just about what they access in the home. Many schools in America are giving kids computer and tablet access, and kids are smart or curious enough to access social media there. I agree that a big part of this is educating children about these hazards, but that also doesn't mean we should allow these companies to data science the shit out of our attention and will power. Many adults have concerning relationships with social media too -- exposure, pressure, and manipulation are key ingredients that are difficult for anyone to deal with.
    • nlarion 6mo ago
      Yeah it's too bad there aren't any tools you can use to block any content at your home YOU personally deem irresponsible /s. Im not sure what your argument is here. If it's for regulation then please do some reading on regulatory capture before you hand over your ID card while logging in to respond to my comment
  • dj_gitmo 6mo ago
    > Parody: I let my child have cocaine and now they're addicted!!!!! Hilarious. Cocaine is illegal because it is addictive.
    • IncreasePosts 6mo ago
      LSD and hallucinogenic mushrooms aren't addictive and aren't legal. Cigarettes and alcohol are addictive and are legal.
    • 6mo ago
• freshtake 6mo ago
  Short form video is a different beast altogether, and much more concerning. The fact that these platforms don't offer a way to avoid short form altogether is a big issue. YouTube allows you to "show fewer shorts" but what if you don't want them popping up at all? AI Slop is the best thing to happen to these platforms - because it will lower trust and engagement as people (hopefully) become tired of inauthenticity. Rage bait is potent when the event in the video _actually_ happened, but when you realize it was AI generated, the manipulation feels even more obvious (though it was always there). These platforms should also allow users to understand how the algorithm has categorized them, and be able to configure it. YouTube, Instagram, et al. would be safer places for viewers if they allowed users to tell them what they want to be exposed to, and what they don't. Big tech is dodgy about this currently, because the more control the user has the lower the engagement (good for the user, bad for profit).
  • malfist 6mo ago
    That "show fewer shorts" button doesn't do a damn thing. I click it, refresh the page and whala, shorts.
    • cphoover 6mo ago
      Previously I made a chrome extension that removes them from web... But I haven't updated it in a while. Basically just inspects the HTML/CSS patterns of the shorts components and removes them from the page. You could probably code/vibe code a similar extension in 10m.
• techteach00 6mo ago
  [flagged]
  • post-it 6mo ago
    Body language analysis of strangers is bunk pseudoscience and a great way to reinforce your prejudices.
  • jjice 6mo ago
    Is that completely based on their expressions and reactions? I mean, you might be right, but I feel like an expression of reaction is too little to base such a damning statement on.
  • IncreasePosts 6mo ago
    I thought the same thing. I took solace in the fact that it may be appealed, and that I suspect lawyers and taxes will take a large chunk out of the settlement
• rankdiff 6mo ago
  Why this site doesn't let me enter? Why temporarily restricted? This stop-bot thing can be annoying at times.
  • publicdebates 6mo ago
    WSJ not tryna be found negligent in any social-media addiction trial.
  • sfmike 6mo ago
    its gone too far half of browsing now gets blocked as a normal user
    • adriand 6mo ago
      I found myself trying to fill out a captcha the other day whose letters were so skewed and crazy I really had no idea what they were. It took me four tries!
• deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
• topheroo 6mo ago
  They were also designed to addict adults, just saying.
  • AnimalMuppet 6mo ago
    Right, but adults are assumed to be somewhat more responsible for themselves. This is why we don't let kids (legally) smoke or drink, but we do let adults do so. We expect that adults can, in general, say no, and that children are less able to do so. But it's not absolute. Some drugs are illegal for adults as well, for example. Why? Because they're too addicting. So are Instagram and Youtube just nicotine, or are they heroin?
• homeonthemtn 6mo ago
  Just give people the option to turn off algos. "I do not consent to suggested content"
• farceSpherule 6mo ago
  [dead]
• _slih 6mo ago
  two verdicts in two days, $375m in new mexico and $6m in LA. meta's insurance company already got cleared of covering these claims. if even ten more states follow, meta is paying out of pocket at a scale that actually shows up on the balance sheet.
• kogasa240p 6mo ago
  Great news but this will probably the catalyst for more "age verification" nonsense. These algorithms are bad for everyone, not just kids.
• bethekidyouwant 6mo ago
  Let me disable short form video content. Jfc YouTube…
• robinanil 6mo ago
  I'm a former Google engineer, now running a children's mental health startup (Emora Health), and my toddler is already on YouTube Kids. So this verdict hits on every axis for me.I wrote up my full take here [1], but the short version: I don't think the "Big Tobacco moment" framing that NYT is pushing actually holds up. Litigation is negative reinforcement, and if you've ever tried telling a toddler "no" you know how well that works long-term.The families in this case absolutely deserve to be heard. The harm is real. But courts can only punish — they can't redesign a recommendation algorithm. The change has to come from people who understand these systems building better ones. Haidt has been saying for years what this verdict just confirmed. The evidence was never the bottleneck. The will to design differently was. I will give you a simple experiment. Try blocking Blippi from YouTube Kids, man, it's crazy, even if you block the main Blippi and Moonbug channels. 100s of channels have Blippi content cross-posted. And it keeps popping up. I know it's easy to build a Blippi block feature using AI that blocks across channels. Thats the kind of solutions we need. I know we have the tools. Just need intent and purpose [1] https://www.emorahealth.com/clinical-insights/social-media-verdict-what-parents-should-know https://www.emorahealth.com/clinical-insights/social-media-v...
  • zer00eyz 6mo ago
    > if you've ever tried telling a toddler "no" Parenting is rough! Good for you, for sticking to your guns. > The plaintiff, Kaley, started using YouTube at age 6 and Instagram at 11. Who was at the wheel here? If we call up all Kaleys teachers from this time frame and ask them "were Kaleys parents checked out" what do you think the answer would be? For as bad as education has gotten, I sympathize with with teachers because parents have gotten FAR worse. It's not like we don't know these things about peoples behavior on devices... maybe it's something that should be talked about in school, along with how credit works, and how to file taxes. Do we need to tell parents "it's 10am, have your kids touched grass yet?"... "It's 10pm did you take the tablet and phone away so they go the fuck to sleep?" -- "touch grass" as a meme/slang is literally people poking fun at the constantly on line. It's "hazing" and "bullying" to drive social correction.
    • robinanil 6mo ago
• jimmyjazz14 6mo ago
  Coming from someone who hate social media (and has kids) this might seems like a good thing on the surface, but I worry it will be another case used to allow the government to limit speech on the internet for adults.
  • turtlesdown11 6mo ago
    This is a civil trial between a regular person and corporations about product liability. It has nothing to do with the government.
    • bigyabai 6mo ago
      Liability and free speech are conjoined at the hip in the United States, courtesy of Section 230.
      • turtlesdown11 6mo ago
        > Liability Product liability is a subdivision of tort law that allows for recovery for damages caused by the makers or distributors of a product. This case has nothing to do with Section 230, the plaintiff successfully argued that the product was defectively designed and caused harm to the plaintiff. Section 230 immunity is not a shield against all liability, it's only a shield against hosting problematic user content.
    • jimmyjazz14 6mo ago
      True, but people in the government are already pointing to it as reason to pass the "Kids Online Safety Act" and overturn section 230.
  • deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
• mikusnuz 6mo ago
  [dead]
• ferguess_k 6mo ago
  What a surprise! I guess they didn't pay enough protection money. Still, better than nothing.
• curious1008 6mo ago
  This is real. No matter how much I configure content controls on YouTube for my daughter, she scrolls past everything and ends up on brainrot videos — and then she can't stop. I've felt for a long time that this is by design.