Attention – it’s our most sought after commodity. And when Facebook first erupted online in 2005, we gave it freely, and in ever increasing amounts. But over the last few weeks, the outcome of a series of bellwether cases in the US have found Meta and YouTube deliberately designed addictive products that harmed young users in order to hold their attention.
These verdicts have been eagerly watched by social harm groups around the world, while another 18 cases are pending against not just Meta and YouTube, but also TikTok and Snapchat.
Some dare ask if this might be tech giants ‘big tobacco’ moment.
In Los Angeles, in the first trial of its kind, jurors heard from top executives at Meta and YouTube; whistleblowers; addiction and social media experts and 20-year-old ‘KGM’ – the woman at the heart of the suit.
‘KGM’ testified she became addicted to YouTube at age six and Meta’s Instagram at nine. By the time she was 10, she said, she was depressed and engaging in self harm. Her social media use also allegedly caused strained relationships with her family and school. At 13 she was diagnosed with body dysmorphic disorder and social phobia – both of which KGM attributed to her social media use.
The jury found Meta and YouTube responsible for injuries incurred by the 20-year-old woman over the course of her childhood, and were ordered to pay $6 million in damages. KGM’s lawyers said her experience is shared by tens of thousands of young people – as many parents across the world, and our little island, would echo.
“This verdict is bigger than one case,” said the lead plaintiff lawyers in a joint statement. “For years, social media companies have profited from targeting children while concealing their addictive and dangerous design features. Today’s verdict is a referendum – from a jury, to an entire industry – that accountability has arrived.”
That verdict came in only a day after Meta was ordered to pay $375 million in civil penalties in a separate lawsuit in New Mexico. Hailed as a historic win, the jury found the company misled consumers over the safety of its platforms and enabled harm, including child sexual exploitation.
Obviously the amounts in damages awarded are financially irrelevant for companies that measure their wealth in billions, if not trillions, but these back-to-back verdicts are remarkable – if a long time coming. Remarkable because, for the first time, social media companies who have argued for two decades they are not responsible for crimes committed on their platforms, were told the way they build their products is itself a form of liability.
So does this mean accountability has arrived? Is it the end of the infinite ‘doom scroll’? Algorithms feeding on personal preferences to curate an addictive ‘user experience’? With these two unprecedented trial defeats, the tech firms seem to be facing a crisis akin to that of the tobacco industry in the 1990s.
For anyone who managed to wade their way through Kiwi whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams’ book Careless People; A Story of Where I Used to Work, a view from inside Facebook in its formative years, these verdicts are surprising only in that it took so long for the cases to come to court.
And it’s not just a failing in the US. Lawmakers the world over have, mystifyingly, long left these companies to ‘regulate themselves’ while their countries strained mental health services are left to mop up the damage.
Australia is still the only country to have an under-16 social media ban. Our own government is taking a lackadaisical approach, despite overwhelming evidence of the harm social media causes our rangatahi. In May last year the National Party raised hopes when it unveiled a bill to ban under-16s from social media. They ran into opposition from their coalition partner, ACT, which described the plan as “not workable”.
An RNZ Reid Research poll released at the time showed more than half of New Zealanders supported the ban for young ones. In December, the Education and Workforce Committee released its interim report on the harm young New Zealanders encounter online (its final report due shortly) which confirmed young people are exposed to online harms including cyberbullying, exposure to harmful content, sexual exploitation and addictive platform design.
So far, the government does not appear to be making it an election issue despite Education Minister Erica Stanford telling The Post back in February “an announcement will be made in the next few weeks.”
It’s that absence of legislative support which has online safety advocates focusing on a multi-pronged legal attack tactic to challenge tech company practices.
It will take more than these cases, however seismic, to loosen big tech’s tight grip on the world’s attention. But the fact that both companies were found liable in California for deliberately designing addictive products that harmed a child is a massive win for campaigners using US courts to force the platforms to change their products.
Once upon a time, we could smoke on planes.
• Merrie Hewetson
