Two juries are deliberating right now — one in Los Angeles, one in Santa Fe — and between them they may fundamentally change what the American legal system considers harm. The LA case asks whether Meta and YouTube designed addictive products that damaged a young woman's mental health. The Santa Fe case accuses Meta of enabling child sexual exploitation and is seeking more than $2 billion. If either jury finds for the plaintiffs, it could set the per-user cost that gets applied across more than 1,600 pending lawsuits — and establish that behavioral harm through product design is something American courts can and will punish.I also discuss COPPA 2.0, the child privacy bill that just passed the Senate unanimously, and why I think the courts — not Congress — are going to be the institution that strikes the balance between an open internet and a safe one.

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My book, The Loop, lays out how AI and platform design narrow the choices available to us before we ever decide: https://www.amazon.com/Loop-Creating-World-Without-Choices/dp/031648718X/