In a Los Angeles courtroom, a 20-year-old woman is putting Big Tech on trial like it’s the tobacco industry 2.0, claiming Instagram and YouTube’s sneaky features—infinite scroll, likes dopamine hits, autoplay traps—hooked her from age 9 and wrecked her mental health with depression, body dysmorphia, and suicidal thoughts. With internal docs showing Meta knew their app was basically digital slot machines for teens, this bellwether case could finally make “addictive by design” a product liability slam dunk, forcing Zuckerberg and pals to rethink the whole engagement-engine racket—or face a tsunami of lawsuits.
How Instagram addictiveness lawsuit could reshape social media – platform design meets product liability
