alt Hacker News> They kind of were. Not completely liable, but partially. Because... um, well, uh, yeah, they are. They are literally liable.
Cigarette companies are not legally liable for the consequences their users encounter.
It’s really hard to have an actual discussion about anything when people are just making up their own definitions.
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In the narrow definition of the term you are using, cigarette companies were found legally liable.
The whole reason they got sued and regulated was because they hid the fact that they knew their product was causing cancer in its users.
There’s additional regulation on cigarettes, which also includes higher taxes on its sale.
We regularly put limits on industries which create externalities that have to be borne by the exchequer.
> Cigarette companies are not legally liable for the consequences their users encounter.
Ok! But they do have to follow a bunch of extra laws that cost them a ton of money and/or users.
Therefore the same can apply to social media algorithm companies.
The one extreme example, is just like cigarettes, there could be 18+ age verification for social media. There a big deal.
Cigarette companies paid billions, and continue to pay, for the societal harm they cause. That's a liability. They're not legally liable in the sense that nobody is going to jail. But they have financial liabilities. Because they do, literally, cause financial harm.
I don't think people really understand just how harshly we ran Tobacco companies into the ground. Many pay more per cigarette for liability than they pay to make the cigarette.