Supreme Court Lets Vermont's Meta Lawsuit Proceed, Opening Door To 50-State Legal Wave (fortune.com) 17
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Fortune: The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a push to avoid a lawsuit alleging that Facebook and Instagram harmed young users, a decision that comes as social media companies increasingly face legal scrutiny. Parent company Meta appealed after Vermont's highest court allowed a suit filed by its attorney general in 2023 to move forward. The company is facing similar lawsuits from states across the country, accusing it of knowingly designing addictive features. Meta had argued that it can't be sued in Vermont court because neither the company nor the app design has specific ties to the state. Vermont countered that the sites' large number of teen users gives its courts jurisdiction.
The Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal in a brief, unexplained order, as is typical. The procedural decision comes after court losses for Meta and YouTube in social media addiction lawsuits in California and New Mexico. [...] Meta, for its part, has said that it has already introduced dozens of tools to support teens and their families and suggested it would have worked with the states on standards for youth social media use. Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark applauded the decision, saying it affirms "that companies that choose to do business in Vermont, like Meta, can be held accountable when they harm kids."
The Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal in a brief, unexplained order, as is typical. The procedural decision comes after court losses for Meta and YouTube in social media addiction lawsuits in California and New Mexico. [...] Meta, for its part, has said that it has already introduced dozens of tools to support teens and their families and suggested it would have worked with the states on standards for youth social media use. Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark applauded the decision, saying it affirms "that companies that choose to do business in Vermont, like Meta, can be held accountable when they harm kids."
Good (Score:3, Insightful)
I want to see Meta destroyed.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They'll make a deal with the king to promote more non woke content.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, at least that would still be some progress....
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
Does that make you feel any better? Zuck renamed to company for something that has cost them $80 billion in losses... so far.
Then enforce antitrust law (Score:3)
And then every few years Facebook either buys that site out or runs them out of business by underpricing advertising in that space until there's no revenue for that company and they run out of investor cash. It's gotten to the point where nobody's really challenging Facebook anymore for anything except hoping for a buyout.
Facebook doe
Good, we need a lot more of this (Score:3)
The science around addiction is much more advanced in 2026 than it was when many of us were kids and teens. Companies are much better at designing things in a way meant to artificially stimulate dopamine and things like that well above and beyond what normies can handle.
There is also a distinct difference between this sort of behavior and just selling something that is commonly known to be literally addicting like booze and drugs. Risking an addiction, with something known to be highly addicting, is different than just using software and finding out it was deliberately designed with dark patterns to trigger addiction in the average user.
The algorithm is designed to maximize profit (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Profit over people? Say it ain't so!
Blaming Meta is like... (Score:4, Informative)
Blaming drug dealers for addiction.
The root cause of the harm attributed to social media is the weaknesses in human nature.
The social media companies didn't create the weaknesses, they exploited them.
Advertisers and politicians have been doing this for years.
People are far too easy to manipulate.
Re:Blaming Meta is like... (Score:4, Insightful)
The analogy is not quite right. Meta are not analogous to drug dealers. They are analogous to drug designers who tweak the formula to make it as addictive as possible, ignoring any harms.
And yes, a cause is human weakness, but the cause is the deliberate, widespread exploitation of that weakness in ways that are very harmful to both individuals and to society.
Re: (Score:2)
Blaming drug dealers for addiction. The root cause of the harm attributed to social media is the weaknesses in human nature. The social media companies didn't create the weaknesses, they exploited them. Advertisers and politicians have been doing this for years. People are far too easy to manipulate.
The cause is two-fold. It's based on human weakness up-front, but it's also based on the disease whereby all things are justified so long as they lead to profit. Greed drove someone to find a way to profitize human weakness, and our system is set up in such a way that profitization is unilaterally seen as such a good thing that no amount of harm caused by that profitization is seen as a bad thing. Greed rules the day, any harm inflicted in the pursuit of that greed is simply a minor inconvenience, but not s
Re: (Score:2)
If society is harmed by people that exploit people's weakness. Then why shouldn't we band together to restrict such activities?
What's the point of being in a society if not for mutual benefit, including protection?
If weakness included not locking your door, then by extension we shouldn't prosecute burglars. Obviously nonsense.
Nobody forced Meta or advertisers to hack the human mind in order to extract what they wanted from them. And demanding personal responsibility from children and the elderly is nonsense
Dodging Responsibility (Score:1)
I fee like most of the social media companies' arguments go something like this:
Government: You make cigarettes?
Big Tobacco: Yes.
Government: Smoking cigarettes is proven to increase the risk of cancer, correct?
Big Tobacco: The science is unclear on that, but if it does, we're making cigarettes not the smoke the user inhales. The user creates the smoke after modifying our product and chooses to inhale the potentially carcinogenic smoke. As such, we are not responsible for the use of our product. Hell, we
Re: (Score:2)
Big Tobacco knew cigarettes were harmful when they published A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers in 1954.
They harmed people. And published misinformation campaigns to cover it up. The industry used its money to influence elections and hire lobbyists that frequently used bribery schemes to sway politicians.
If someone believes in absolute freedom for corporations to do business as they please, then perhaps all the above just seems like a smart business strategy.
If for some strange reason you believe that t