Framing social media addiction

An American civil court jury this week found Meta and YouTube designed their social media services to be addictive and awarded $6 million in damages to a young woman who said features such as infinite scroll, beauty filters and algorithmic recommendations drove her into compulsive use, depression and body dysmorphia.

A day earlier, another US jury ordered Meta to pay $375 million for misleading users about child safety. The sums are, by Big Tech standards, modest.

But for the first time, a jury has held social media companies liable not for what users post but for how the product is built — the theory of harm that broke Big Tobacco in the 1990s, when it was found to be knowingly manufacturing addictive products while concealing the health risks.