A Los Angeles jury found both Meta and YouTube liable for designing addictive platforms that harmed a young woman's mental health — $3 million in compensatory damages, another $3 million in punitive damages. It came one day after a New Mexico jury ordered Meta to pay $375 million for enabling child exploitation on its platforms. Two verdicts in 48 hours. More than 1,600 lawsuits waiting behind them.

In this video, I break down what happened, why I consider this the equivalent of the cigarette settlements or the seat belt mandate, and how a dinner I attended while writing my book The Loop — where addiction researchers presented a how-to manual for making apps as addictive as possible — set me on a path that ends at this moment, 10 years later.

The era of unaccountable behavioral design is over. The question now is what comes next.

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My book, The Loop, lays out the framework behind all of this: https://www.amazon.com/Loop-Creating-World-Without-Choices/dp/031648718X/