Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

This seems really messy. We regulate gambling because it's a specific thing, but how do you differentiate a non-addictive platform vs an addictive platform? (aside from this specific company... I mean in general). How do you "test" whether or not they're inherently addictive?

At least in this specific instance, they can look at the blast radius and make a determination. But this feels legally unsatisfying in the general case

I do wonder what’s going to happen in the future to addictive social media algorithms. Feels like one of those things that’s so powerful, but skirts by because it doesn’t feel like it should be (like targeted advertising).

Ultimately, I think this is going to come down to proving exactly the extent of what Meta knew, and what they decided to do about it, and how that violated various laws.

I wager there is a foot gun component to this, in which Meta has tried to preemptively, either through gestures of goodwill or public reassurance or PR, institute various think tanks, work groups, and internal studies with an intent to alleviate the public's worry.

Those studies and workgroups actually could end up demonstrating that their products and algorithms and user interfaces, indeed, caused whatever this trial accuses them of doing. And if they didn't act according to what their internal data showed, I bet this is going to be the crux of the trial.

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Big Tobacco sold a product that was designed to give cancer to the users of it.

Heroin is addictive, nicotine is addictive. Light and sound are fundamentally different.