When a Landmark Trial Misses the Mark
Social media use among young people is widespread, but so too are accounts of depression, anxiety, and exploitation. Because of this, families, mental health providers, advocates, and elected officials are operating under a sense of urgency. Some have turned to government to help keep kids safe online. Unfortunately, many of these efforts have resulted in a zero sum game. Policies to restrict and regulate social media companies and their use often crash against bulwarks of American democracy and the free market while failing to achieve their stated goals of keeping children away from harmful content.
For the first time, major social media companies are facing a jury in a California bellwether trial alleging social media addiction and adverse effects as a result of the companiesā model. Meta, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube were all named as defendants in a series of related lawsuits, one of which was selected as a bellwether for the trial. Snapchat settled shortly before jury selection for the trial began, at the end of January. The plaintiffās primary argument is that these companies intentionally designed their products to be addictive and that the visuals, features, algorithms, and user experience were geared towards creating an unhealthy relationship. The tech companies must defend whether or not they took adequate steps to reduce harmful features in their product. The direction of this trial will set the tone for social media lawsuits going forward. If the plaintiff is successful, social media companies will have to anticipate to a startling degree of accuracy how the content their users are exposed to will affect them, and create their models accordingly.
The lawyers prosecuting the tech companies have relied on the analogy of tobacco. They argue that, like large tobacco companies, tech platforms knowingly distributed and encouraged a highly addictive product. Clay Calvert, for the American Enterprise Institute, dismantles this analogy in four primary ways. Firstly, suing social media companies raises First Amendment concerns in a way that a tobacco lawsuit does not. Free speech and expression are inherently at play when discussing the content with which users engage. Secondly, tobacco usage leads to concrete physical harms and there is a long history of medical research to show this. Meanwhile, the connection between ādesign featuresā and harm is more tenuous. Additionally, there are some tangible benefits to using social media. Connection, for instance. Alternatively, there are no clear benefits to tobacco usage. Finally, a distinction must be drawn between substance and behavioral addiction. Nicotine as a substance is addictive. Social media use as a behavior is more vague and āsocial media addictionā is not a formal diagnosis.
Beyond the social media addiction case, efforts to age verify, restrict, and limit social media use are multiplying globally. The stakes are high for children and their families. Beyond that, anyone holding a social media account has a vested interest in ensuring that solutions do not infringe upon their privacy and freedom of speech. Parents are a vital part of a sustainable, effective solution, having both rights and solemn responsibilities when it comes to their childrenās activities, including safe internet use. Families can respond to instances of misuse or harm with far more speed and nuance than a law requiring all users (of all ages) to submit personal information to use an app or a class action lawsuit ever could.
This is not to say that parents and caregivers have an easy task. The good news is that the very design features and platform models under trial right now have created a multitude of supervision tools that offer a customizable and supervised experience to families. Last year alone heralded fantastic innovations in this category. We wrote about it in 2025 Tools for Keeping Kids Safe Online: Innovations Empower Parents, but Parents Must Use Them. Beyond 2025, basic principles of engagement and awareness can go a long way in protecting children. The Pelican Instituteās social media toolkit covers how families can know, monitor, and connect by using the tools available on the free market. Educating families and children about the risks and rewards of social media avoids the false analogies and promises of expensive efforts to deploy more ineffective, overreaching government regulations to an ever-changing landscape of family and consumer options.
Links to Learn More:
Social Media Isnāt All Bad for Kids | WSJ
