Key Summary
This week, two juries, one in California, the other in New Mexico, handed tech companies their most consequential legal decisions to date. These verdicts show what we at Fathom have been arguing for months: tort law and technology are on a collision course. They also highlight a fundamental issue with the current state of tech regulation: the courts are now doing the work of assigning accountability where legislatures have been asleep at the wheel. And the consequences for both the safety of users and the state of American innovation are profound.
Tech on Trial
On Wednesday, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and YouTube negligent in the design of their platforms. The court awarded $6 million in combined damages to a plaintiff who alleged that she became addicted to Instagram and YouTube as a child, leading to depression, anxiety, and body image issues. The jury determined that the companies were negligent in platform design, that negligence was a substantial factor in causing harm, that the companies failed to adequately warn users of the dangers, and that both companies acted with malice (meaning, under California law, highly egregious conduct).
This case was selected as a bellwether by California’s Judicial Council Coordination Proceedings (JCCP), with the understanding that the outcome would help guide the resolution of approximately 2,000 pending lawsuits brought by parents and school districts against social media companies across the country. As one plaintiffs’ attorney put it, this trial was “a vehicle, not an outcome.” Critically, the case was argued and decided on a negligence theory focused on platform design (i.e., on features like infinite scroll, autoplay, and notification systems), not on the content that users encountered, meaning that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act was not implicated.
TikTok and Snap, originally co-defendants, settled before trial—an early sign that the industry is already beginning to price in liability exposure.
Read the full piece: "The Tort Storm Has Arrived"