I don’t feel good about this case- on the one hand, I’m all for sticking it to big corporations. On the other hand, nobody has claimed that Meta and YouTube were doing anything illegal, so this case is different from civil suits brought after a criminal case finds someone guilty. This is a case where the jury decided they don’t like how two corporations acted, and are just giving money to one person. Why does this plaintiff in particular deserve this money?
I’ve argued in the past that the right way to create the change in corporations we want is to change the laws, and people have made valid points that Congress has basically given up on doing that. But even so, civil cases with fines don’t seem like that way to make lasting change. In the analogues to the tobacco fights, there are LAWS that regulate tobacco company behaviors as a result. The civil case here isn’t going to result in any law. So what are companies supposed to do? Tiptoe around some ill defined social boundary and hope they don’t get sued? Because apparently the defense of, “no I didn’t target that person and I didn’t break any laws” is still going to get you fined. What happens when a company from a conservative location gets sued in a liberal location for causing a social ill? Oh, we’re cool with that. But what if a company from a liberal location gets sued in a conservative location for the same thing? Oh, maybe we don’t like that as much. I’m taking the libertarian side here. I know plenty of people who don’t watch TV, don’t use Facebook, and I know plenty of people that recognized that they were spending too much time on digital platforms and decided to quit or cut back. So a healthy person can self regulate on these apps, I’ve seen it and done it. I’m just not sure how much responsibility Meta and YouTube bear in my mind. If they’re getting fined $3M plus some TBD punitive amount, are we saying that this 20 year old person lost out on earning that much money in their life or would need to spend $3M on therapy because of Meta or YouTube? It feels a little steep off a fine for one person.
If Meta and YouTube really were/are making addictive products, wouldn’t a lot more people be harmed? Shouldn’t this be a class action suit where anyone with mental trauma or depression be included?
I don’t know the details of the case, but I highly doubt that this one plaintiff was targeted specifically, and I doubt their case is that unique. I read tons of news articles about cyber bullying, depression, suicide attempts, and tech addiction. Does every one get to sue Meta and YouTube for $3M now?
The case was brought under product liability law.
If I sell you gizmo, and I know, or should know, that using the gizmo could seriously harm you, and I don't tell you or do anything about it, I am liable for damages you incur.
I’m not sure the plaintiff’s mental harm was caused by Meta and YouTube. You can be just as depressed without social media and online videos. And even if they were, other cases that are kind of similar to this have not found the corporation responsible. The parents of Sandy Hook didn’t get any money out of Remington, and their product is much more directly linked to harming people than an app. McDonald’s was not held liable in 2002 for making people fat. I am pretty sure the food at McDonald’s is more easily linked to our health outcomes than the link in this case.
Should Apple or Samsung be held liable for making the phone that the plaintiff probably used to use these apps? How much responsibility do they bear?
Further, Facebook/Instagram and YouTube are free products from the perspective of the plaintiff. These corporations didn’t sell anything to the plaintiff, so can they even be held liable? They did sell the plaintiff’s data to advertisers, which I think you might be able to hold them responsible if they misused that data, but this isn’t what the case was about.
I’m not rooting for depression or suicidal thoughts or anything, but this doesn’t feel like the right direction we need to be moving in as society. We can’t simultaneously argue for free speech and freedom of choice and also claim that we aren’t capable of making our own choices to live our lives responsibly.
I was just pointing out that the basic framework of the case is not some novel new idea, and a jury just decided to stick it to a big company out of the blue. There is a long history of this sort of case, and a jury did hear a lot of evidence from witnesses and instructions on the law from a judge.
Some of your examples are not very compelling.
In the case of Remington, there was another party that (presumably) the jury found was more directly responsible. Also, the victims of sandy hook were not Remingtons' customers.
Apple does not make you install instagram on your phone. And I doubt that you could find really compelling evidence that Apple knew in great detail the harms that were being caused, and rather then seek to mitigate them, instead made them worse in order to earn more money.
I'm not sure there a requirement that a product be paid for in order to be subject to product liability law.
I think I agree that these product liability cases are not the best way for a society to deal with these problems. I would prefer to see the democratic process arrive at some reasonable solution, based on the desires of the majority of the population. But there has been almost no movement in that direction, and I have my doubts there will be (in the US).
And I think it's important to see that this is about 16 (and younger) year old children, not adults.
> Apple does not make you install instagram on your phone.
Meta did not make her install Instagram on her phone.
> I'm not sure there a requirement that a product be paid for in order to be subject to product liability law.
You’re the one who originally used the word sell when pointing out this case was brought as a product liability case, not me. And selling something is the first step in establishing product liability. But even if the court allowed a liability case to go where there was no commercial sale, Meta and YouTube could have argued that their product would not be considered defective/harmful by a reasonable person- almost by definition the number of users of Instagram and YouTube make that argument- and thus they should not be liable for one person claiming a defect.
Like I said before, this should be a class action. One person doing it is a money grab and the jury just wanted to stick it to “big bad tech companies.” I probably wouldn’t care so much if they had found Instagram liable but excluded YouTube, but the fact that YouTube has to pay some of the damages means the jury was not thinking that hard.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/Products_liability