Meta and Google Face Big Tobacco-Style Legal Fallout After Addiction Trial
A landmark jury verdict holding Meta Platforms Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google liable for harming a young user with products designed to be addictive threatens to put the social networking companies in the same category as Big Tobacco and opioid manufacturers. This represents a significant crack in their long-standing shield from legal responsibility for what happens on their platforms.
The Financial and Regulatory Implications
While the US$6 million in damages awarded to the 20-year-old plaintiff will barely register on the companies' balance sheets, the impact of the verdict will likely be more damaging and harder to quantify. This loss, in the first of thousands of product-liability lawsuits against Meta, Google and other social networks, is the kind of legal black eye that often leads to increased government regulations and oversight.
Unless the verdict is overturned on appeal, the companies may need to fundamentally change how their products work. Such changes could jeopardize the valuable advertising businesses that keep platforms like Instagram and YouTube so profitable. Any modifications that decrease the time people spend scrolling, sharing and interacting on these networks could directly hurt the social media companies' revenue streams.
A Turning Point in Tech Accountability
"This is going to be the era of products liability," said Jess Miers, an assistant professor at the University of Akron School of Law. Miers wasn't surprised by this week's verdict and said it could represent a turning point for how people access information online and how technology companies are held accountable.
"I think it perfectly reflects the animosity that people are feeling toward tech," Miers added. People increasingly see these tech giants "as not just companies that provide us access to content, whether we like that content or not, but who also have a large role in the way that our democracy is functioning or not functioning, and our sort of broader humanity as well."
The Legal Landscape Shifts
For years, social media companies have been shielded from most legal threats thanks to laws that grant them immunity from the potentially inflammatory or damaging content their users post. This week's verdict fundamentally changed that legal calculus. The content on Meta's Instagram and Google's YouTube wasn't the focus of the trial. Instead, plaintiffs successfully attacked the companies' designs and core functionality, creating a legal precedent where they could continue to face lawsuits unless their products are substantially redesigned.
The trial represents just the beginning in a long line of similar lawsuits facing Meta and Google, as well as other social media companies including Snap Inc. and TikTok Inc. The platforms have been sued by thousands of individual users alleging personal injury, and by more than a thousand school districts claiming their products are harming students and making it harder for teachers to educate effectively.
Growing Legal Momentum
State attorneys general in approximately 30 states are also pursuing legal action against the companies. New Mexico already had its day in court against Meta and this week won a US$375 million verdict after a jury found the company misled teens about keeping them safe from sexual exploitation.
The verdicts from California and New Mexico may signal what's to come in future litigation. "It generates a lot of momentum," said Lexi Hazam, one of the lead attorneys representing personal injury plaintiffs and school districts in similar cases against the social media giants. "We have the wind at our backs going into the next trials. And these companies are under a lot of pressure."
Hazam will be part of the trial team in the next major case to see a courtroom, which is scheduled for June and features a school district from Kentucky as the plaintiff. Because many of the trials include similar or even overlapping evidence, she was encouraged by the jury's findings in California and New Mexico, suggesting a pattern may be emerging in how courts view these cases.
