Prime Minister Keir Starmer has pledged to tackle “addictive features” in social media following a landmark US court ruling that found Meta and YouTube liable for harms caused by designing addictive technology. The verdict, delivered by a jury in California, awarded $6 million (£4.5 million) in damages to a 20-year-old woman who said she became hooked on social media as a child.
Starmer said the ruling signals a rising public expectation for more aggressive regulation. “I’m absolutely clear that we need to go further,” he said. “The status quo isn’t good enough. We need to do more to protect children. That’s why we’re consulting about issues such as banning social media for under-16s. I’m very keen that we do more on addictive features within social media.”
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex celebrated the verdict as “a reckoning”, stating: “For too long, families have paid the price for platforms built with total disregard for the children they reach. We stand with every parent and young person who refused to be silenced. Today, the truth has been heard and precedent has been set. Let this be the change – where our children’s safety is finally prioritised above profit.”
Google, which owns YouTube, said it would appeal, arguing that the case “misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site”. Meta also said it disagreed with the verdict and was evaluating legal options.
In Brussels, Henna Virkkunen, the European Commission’s digital chief, said the case would send “a very clear message” that online platforms must take seriously “the risks they are posing”. The Molly Rose Foundation, set up after the death of 14-year-old Molly Russell, said the government “can make safety and wellbeing the price for tech firms to pay for doing business in the UK”.
Thomas Lancaster of Imperial College London warned: “It’s fine to have policies regarding who can use your service, but if these policies can’t be enforced, that is putting the people at risk.” Sacha Haworth of the Tech Oversight Project added: “The era of big tech invincibility is over.”
