Yes, We Should Celebrate the Verdicts Against Social Media Companies
But Will Regulations Follow These Landmark Decisions? (Vol. 6; Issue 13)
The last few weeks brought news of major verdicts against social media firms. Attorneys for an adolescent known as K.G.M alleged that several of these companies failed to protect her from abuse, used algorithms deliberately designed to addict her, and caused her emotional injury. TikTok and Snapchat settled out of court for undisclosed amounts. On March 25, 2026, however, a California jury ordered Google/YouTube to pay $6 million in damages to the teenager. Meanwhile, some 1,600 plaintiffs have now filed lawsuits of a similar nature in California, and 10,000 similar lawsuits from individuals and nearly 800 from school districts are in process nationwide.
Days before the landmark California decision, a jury in New Mexico held Meta liable for similar reasons. It ordered the firm to pay $375 million in damages. Unlike the California case that involved harm to a minor, the attorney general of New Mexico filed the lawsuit on behalf of the people of his state. That litigation alleged that Meta made design choices they knew enabled predators to target minors, ignored warnings from their own internal staff, and misled the public about safety measures. More specifically, the lawsuit accused Meta of knowingly allowing Facebook and its subsidiaries, to become "breeding grounds" for child sexual exploitation.
These verdicts mark the first time juries have found social media firms liable for harming the public. It is a turning point for public welfare, for placing the needs of the people above profits for these corporations. These companies can now expect to face grievances from individuals and governments alike—similar to what happened with Big Tobacco in the 1990s. In a recent interview with CNN, Tristan Harris, a former Google design ethicist and co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, proclaimed:
There are more regulations for making hamburgers in New York City than exist for social media companies.
For the last two decades, these firms grew exponentially and malignantly. They are among the largest companies in the world, with Meta alone having a market value of $1.3 trillion, a dollar amount far exceeding the GDP of most countries. From a psycho-political viewpoint, these lawsuits will ideally begin to address four major threats posed by these companies.
First, these firms significantly contribute to the breakdown in societal norms. The anonymity offered by these platforms invites people to post cruel, sadistic, and sometimes life-threatening posts. They have created new phenomena, like doxing, in which people’s private information is disseminated to millions. The destruction of common human decency adversely affects all of us.
Second, partially because of anonymity, and even more so because they instantly spread information to millions, these firms cause psychological regression. Infants and toddlers tend to see the world in concrete, black-and-white terms, and they project these simple perspectives onto others. As individuals mature into adolescence and beyond, they develop the capacity to see the world in shades of gray. They learn to think more critically. Children often treat others selfishly and insensitively; mature adults do not. In like manner, many social media users harm others in ways they’d never treat someone in real life.
Third, unregulated social media fosters societal impairment of empathy. People forget that anyone else but them has feelings, can be hurt, or killed. Individuals come to see other humans as digitized objects rather than beings. French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault (1991) describes the modern human as an “object of information, never a subject in communication” (p. 200).
The objectification of us fleshy humans, us vibrant thinking and feeling subjects, adversely affects us in various settings, including at work. Consider the example of the profession of journalism. Reporters once only faced peril if working in combat zones. Because of social media, journalists’ work has become dangerous in all realms. Social media allows those who take issue with reporting to spread widespread online abuse, including coordinating harassment and making death threats. Women and minority journalists face disproportionate attacks, including sexual threats and AI-generated deepfakes designed to ruin their reputations. As a result, some journalists self-censor. Others abandon the profession altogether.
That same objectification naturally impacts the world of love as well. Most people find romantic relationships via online dating platforms. Many of these are safe. They use systems that strive to protect the privacy of the parties involved. However, other platforms invite pedophiles to groom victims or rejected lovers to post revenge porn.
Fourth, people increasingly sit at home, staring at computer screens instead of socializing in the real world. The trend only aggravates the social withdrawal already validated by the epidemic of loneliness in America. Some 30 percent of the American public now reside in single-person households. Fewer people interact socially in person. And if they venture into coffee houses or gyms, they typically retreat by locking their gaze on screens and plugging their ears with noise-canceling headphones. People are increasingly losing the capacity to interact outside virtual social environments.
Finally, these media have accelerated Lasch’s (1991) “culture of narcissism” beyond his wildest dreams. People post their pictures of their Saturday night drunken parties, the sandwiches they consume, the jeans they buy, the states they visit, the varieties of lip gloss they purchase, the way their cats play with feathers or their dogs do stupid tricks, their varied solutions for constipation, and so on ad infinitum. Why should we care? It’s difficult enough to feel attached to those we love without having our interactions contaminated by narcissistic exhibitionism or corporate parasitism.
Social media, like tobacco, is here to stay. Despite causing lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), many still smoke. Vaping remains a scary problem, particularly for the young. Social media is not entirely without benefits, but allowing it to proliferate without regulation will cause unimaginable social harm. Without guardrails, the trends towards rudeness, regression, impaired empathy, narcissism and social withdrawal will only accelerate.
These recently successful lawsuits, soon to be followed by thousands more as salivating attorneys line up to gather litigants, should at least reduce the power of these mega-companies. With billions of dollars to spend on lawyers, the social media firms will appeal these cases. Perhaps some of the damages will be retracted or reduced. But the game is now on. Hopefully, state and national governments will work to counter these platforms. Antitrust laws should lead to the break-up of the largest ones. These trends are crucial because, in truth, the phrase "social media" could be more accurately categorized as “social destruction.”
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References
Foucault, M. (1991) Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. A. Sheridan. New York: Vintage.
Lasch, C. (1991). The Culture of Narcissism. New York: Norton.