Irish Examiner view: YouTube and Meta verdict could see tide turning on harmful social media

A court in LA may be doing what legislators have hesitated to attempt: Holding social media companies directly accountable for the consequences of their design choices

A young woman successfully argued in court that products she began using in childhood — Instagram and YouTube — were deliberately engineered to be addictive. Stock picture: Alamy

The multimillion-dollar verdict delivered this week by a Los Angeles jury against Meta and YouTube may, in time, be viewed as the moment the tide began to turn against Big Tech. 
For years, governments have struggled to regulate platforms that have grown vast, wealthy, and politically influential.

Now, the courts may be doing what legislators have hesitated to attempt: Holding these companies directly accountable for the consequences of their design choices.