Could tortious liability be the only tool to make Big Tech pay for the psychological harms stemming from social media use? Harry Lambert issues a call to arms
- Social media platforms intentionally create and normalise addiction through algorithms engineered to exploit users’ emotional and neurological vulnerabilities.
- The article argues that tortious liability should extend to social media companies, as their deliberate design choices foreseeably cause psychological harm—including addiction, depression, sexploitation and body dysmorphia—while generating profit from those very harms.
Example 1: Addiction
Companies do morally dubious things every day, but there is no tort of being ‘dastardly’. So the first question we need to tackle head-on is why tortious liability should exist at all. In other words, why does making an addictive social media platform attract liability, in a way that (say) making an addictive cigarette or a gambling platform—or even, for that matter, a delicious chocolate bar—does not?
Each comparison helps us tease out the legally and morally relevant features at play.
Starting with chocolate: ultimately, however delicious—and however many additives
