Meta and Alphabet’s Addiction Verdict Turns the Social Media Tide
Mark Zuckerberg said it was against Meta’s interests to put out an app its users didn’t feel good using.
Photographer: Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg
When it comes to punishments levied against Meta Platforms Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google over the years, $6 million for claims that their apps were addictive and caused a mental health crisis might not seem like much. The amount, which a Los Angeles jury on Wednesday ordered to be paid to a 20-year-old woman known as Kaley G.M., is a mere pittance when compared with a $5 billion fine from the Federal Trade Commission for Meta or a $3.5 billion penalty for Google from the European Union.
But that would be the wrong way to look at this pivotal moment in big tech accountability. Those other penalties could be chalked up as the cost of doing business. They resulted in little change to the companies’ actual products, the defining characteristic of which is their ability to keep users hooked in order to sell advertising.