I can’t believe it, I’m writing a piece supporting Meta and Youtube. Recently a jury in Los Angeles found Meta and Youtube liable to providing compensation to a woman. This woman – K.G.M – sued Meta, Youtube, Snap and Tiktok. Her argument – she was harmed by the addictive nature of these platforms as a child.
You Get Addicted By Yourself
Let’s agree to disagree – as a platform designer, I will want my product to be as addictive as possible. That’s how I make sure that my product is used as much as possible – as long as possible.
As a child if you lost your time to these platforms, maybe it’s the fault of your parents to not control your screen time, to not add parental controls.
Look, holding platforms liable suggests a private company has a greater duty of care over a child than the child’s own parents. It implies parents are just powerless victims of “algorithmic sorcery” rather than the ones who bought and provided the tech. If a parent gives a child the keys to a car and they crash, you look at the supervision, not the horsepower. By blaming the platform, we’re just letting parents off the hook for the difficult, hands-on work of moderating their child’s digital diet.
The Counterpoint: Asymmetric Warfare
However, to argue solely for the platforms is to ignore the sophistication of the adversary. While I defend the principle of product design, we must acknowledge the nuance of asymmetric warfare.
The argument for K.G.M. relies on the fact that these platforms are not just passive tools; they are weaponized by artificial intelligence. Unlike a cereal box or a television show, modern algorithms actively adapt to exploit specific psychological vulnerabilities in real-time. A parent can limit screen time, but they cannot compete with a supercomputer designed to trigger a dopamine release at the exact moment the child feels bored. This creates a compelling argument that the “addiction” is not a failure of will, but a successful outcome of predatory engineering.