Your social media "addiction" is your own responsibility
It is not social media giants' responsibility to make sure a teenager is not spending hours a day on Instagram or TikTok.
In the last few weeks, we have gotten one good ruling and one bad ruling about Internet companies and how they interface with customers. Taking the good news first: If Congress held internet service providers liable for piracy by their customers, that could have had major downstream effects for every consumer. It would force draconian action by ISP's and have serious consequences for universities, hospitals and large corporations.
Protecting internet companies from being held accountable for misdeeds of users sets a strong precedent against punishing gun manufacturers for gun violence, something Democrats have wanted to do for several decades now as a backdoor way of limiting Second Amendment rights when they could not get a victory through the normal political process. It also sets a precedent against the scheme to hold banks accountable for what people do with the money loaned to them. This was an important ruling that could have positive effects for decades to come.
The ruling against Meta for making their products "addictive" is less defensible. While the algorithms are indeed designed to hold users' attention, it cannot be described as "addiction" in the same way as tobacco or illegal drugs, where the body becomes chemically dependent on the drugs. If someone stops using a number of illegal drugs, he can experience severe withdrawal symptoms that can be life-threatening. Nicotine withdrawal is also a real thing. While there might be compulsive behaviors tied to internet use (such as the desire to spend hours reading my brilliant Substack posts) there is no physical need to continue scrolling your platform of choice.
When dealing with social media use by teens, the best place to address compulsive behaviors is not at the algorithmic level, but at the parental level. It is a relatively simple matter to limit the time spent on devices, even if implementation of limits can bring the temptation to immediately loosen them. It is not social media giants' responsibility to make sure a teenager is not spending hours a day on Instagram or TikTok. That responsibility ultimately falls to the parents - and as the teens get older it is their own responsibility as they prepare to be adults.
The two rulings set up a conflict that will eventually need to be resolved. Either corporations are responsible for the use of their products, as with the social media lawsuit, or they are not responsible for those actions, as with the case of online piracy. Hopefully the government moves more in the direction of the Cox Communications case. We do not want Congress, the judicial system or the federal bureaucracy deciding what is and is not punishable behavior for corporations. Not only does this significantly expand government power, it also opens the door for partisan or ideological abuse of power to reward friends and punish enemies. That is not going to be a good outcome for anyone.