Niklas Pivic'Ruling that Meta and YouTube deliberately designed addictive products marks possible watershed moment for social media.'
'The verdict was the second blow in a week for big tech after Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, was ordered to pay $375m (£282m) by a New Mexico court. A jury found it misled consumers about the safety of its platforms. These had features that “enabled paedophiles and predators to engage in child sexual exploitation” and were intentionally designed to get young people addicted to them, said the state’s department of justice.
At $6m, the damages in the California suit were relatively small, but the consequences of the double verdicts will be much greater. It was a week in which a years-long campaign to shift the balance of power between big tech and children finally seemed to gain momentum.
Meta, YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok are facing thousands of similar lawsuits in US courts, testing if their platforms were designed to be addictive. If they lose, the damages could be crippling.'
#meta #facebook #google #addiction #lawsuit #MarkZuckerberg #youtube #SurveillanceCapitalism #capitalism #tech
