According to the recent Meta/YouTube verdict, the plaintiff started using YouTube at age 6 and Instagram at age 9. The jury deliberated 43 hours, answered "yes" to every negligence question, and found evidence of malice. Then Meta's stock went up 0.7%. 🤔 That gap tells you everything. 📊

The $6 million award is basically a rounding error for companies pulling in $350 billion in combined annual revenue. What actually matters is the 2,000 pending lawsuits this verdict just handed a roadmap to, and the federal trial coming in Oakland this summer. This is the first domino. The tobacco industry had the same "we're being scapegoated" defense in 1994, and that argument eventually cost them $206 billion.

Here's what I keep thinking about as a guy who teaches about the legal, ethical, and social issues of information technology: the products we build have consequences we're responsible for, whether we want to admit it or not. The jury didn't care that Meta said Kaley's home life was complicated. They cared that the autoplay kept going anyway. 🔁

Two things can both be true: teen mental health is complex, and a notification engine designed to override a kid's ability to stop scrolling is a design choice someone made.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-03-25/social-media-lawsuit-trial-meta-google-verdict
#ChildSafety #BigTech #Leadership #Accountability #SocialMedia #Ethics #DePaulUniversity #DePaulU @depaulu