Tech giants should be liable for creating addictive platforms

Although social media companies are in many ways villains that have not done nearly enough to protect children on their platforms, they nonetheless should not be held liable based on claims that they are creating addictive and harmful online environments.

- Erwin Chemerinsky, Tribune News Service

On Monday, a trial began in Los Angeles Superior Court in a lawsuit brought by a woman, referred to in documents as Kaley G.M., against tech giants YouTube and Instagram. (TikTok previously settled with her). The plaintiff's claim is that these platforms were built specifically to be addictive to children. Hers is just one of more than 2,500 lawsuits now pending that are based on a variety of legal claims against some of the world’s largest corporations.

The core of these lawsuits is that internet and social media companies, including those owned by Meta and Google, should be held liable on the same theory famously used against Big Tobacco: that brands knowingly created an addictive product. But the analogy fails for one simple reason. Internet and social media companies are engaged in speech, protected by the Ist Amendment, while no constitutional right is involved in regulating cigarettes and other tobacco products.