Can Social Media Companies Be Liable for Addictive Design?
Meta and YouTube Lost a Landmark Social Media Addiction Case
Can Social Media Companies Be Liable for Addictive Design?
A landmark jury verdict found Meta and YouTube liable for contributing to the harm experienced by a woman who began using their platforms as a child.
The case did not focus only on individual posts or creators. It challenged the design of the platforms themselves—including features such as infinite scroll, autoplay, notifications, personalized recommendations, and unpredictable rewards that encourage users to return.
In this episode of Network Issues, media scholar Jamie Cohen and marketing strategist Destinee Day examine what the lawsuit could mean for social-media accountability, youth mental health, Section 230, internet fame, the creator economy, influencer ethics, and future regulation.
What Happened in the Meta and YouTube Addiction Lawsuit?
In March 2026, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and Google-owned YouTube liable for contributing to the harm suffered by a young woman identified as KGM.
The plaintiff said she began using social media as a child and later experienced severe mental-health problems. Her legal team argued that features intended to maximize engagement encouraged compulsive use and substantially contributed to that harm.
The jury awarded:
$3 million in compensatory damages
$3 million in punitive damages
Meta was assigned 70% of the responsibility and YouTube 30%.
Both companies denied wrongdoing and have appealed. Their requests for a new trial were denied before the appeals moved forward.
The verdict is significant because it was the first case of its kind to reach a jury and could influence thousands of similar lawsuits.
Why Was This Case Different?
Online-platform lawsuits often focus on content created by users.
This case focused heavily on the companies’ own product-design decisions.
The challenged features included:
Infinite scroll
Autoplay
Notifications
Algorithmic recommendations
Intermittent rewards
Metrics such as likes and follower counts
Systems designed to extend viewing time
The plaintiff’s argument was not simply that harmful media appeared on Instagram or YouTube.
It was that the platforms were engineered to encourage repeated and compulsive engagement, especially among young users.
Is Social Media Really Addictive?
The terminology remains debated.
“Social-media addiction” is not always used as a formal clinical diagnosis. Researchers and clinicians may instead refer to:
Problematic social-media use
Compulsive use
Behavioral addiction
Disordered platform use
Dependency-like behavior
The episode compares social media with gambling because both can use unpredictable rewards.
A user refreshes a feed without knowing what will appear next. The result might be a message, a funny video, praise, outrage, breaking news, or nothing meaningful.
That uncertainty can encourage repetition.
The safest conclusion is:
Certain people experience compulsive or addiction-like social-media use, and several platform features are intentionally optimized to increase engagement. Researchers continue to debate the best clinical terminology and the degree of causation.
Why Is Infinite Scroll So Powerful?
Earlier websites eventually reached the end of a page.
Infinite scroll removed that stopping point.
Instead of making an active decision to open another page, the user can continue moving through content without interruption.
That design reduces opportunities to ask:
How long have I been here?
Did I find what I needed?
Should I stop?
Is this still enjoyable?
Why am I continuing?
The feed also changes continuously.
Unlike a slot machine with a fixed set of internal outcomes, a recommendation feed responds to the user’s behavior and draws material from an enormous content pool.
The user is not only playing the system. The system is learning from the user.
What Does “You Are the Product” Mean?
Social platforms are usually free at the point of access because advertising funds much of the system.
The user provides:
Attention
Time
Behavioral data
Interests
Searches
Social connections
Engagement signals
Possible purchase intent
Platforms use those signals to improve predictions about which content and advertisements will hold attention or cause an action.
The audience is therefore both the consumer and part of what is being sold to advertisers.
What Is the Role of Section 230?
Section 230 is part of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.
It generally prevents online services from being treated as the publisher or speaker of content created by users. It has helped protect blogs, forums, social networks, review sites, and many other online communities from potentially overwhelming liability.
The current lawsuits raise a different question:
Does Section 230 protect a company when the alleged harm comes from its own product design rather than a specific third-party post?
Courts have increasingly distinguished between claims involving user content and claims targeting features such as autoplay, notifications, or engagement-maximizing design. The legal boundaries remain unsettled, and appeals could take years to resolve. (Benesch Law)
Why Not Simply Repeal Section 230?
Repealing Section 230 would not affect only Meta, Google, or TikTok.
It could also expose:
Independent forums
Small social networks
Nonprofit communities
Comment sections
Blogs
Review platforms
Support groups
Startups
Large technology companies may be better equipped to absorb litigation and compliance costs than smaller competitors.
That could produce the opposite of the intended outcome: the largest companies survive while smaller spaces disappear.
Reform and repeal are not the same thing.
The challenge is finding rules that address harmful company conduct without making user participation or independent online communities legally impossible.
Why Is Age Verification So Complicated?
Protecting children online sounds straightforward until a platform must determine who is a child.
Possible verification methods include:
Entering a birthdate
Uploading government identification
Parental verification
Facial-age estimation
Biometric analysis
App-store controls
Device-level restrictions
Simple birthdate questions are easy to bypass.
Stronger methods may require collecting sensitive identity data from children and adults. That creates new risks involving privacy, security, exclusion, and surveillance.
Questions include:
Who stores the data?
Can it be used for advertising?
What happens after a breach?
Can vulnerable users remain anonymous?
Will adults need to identify themselves to access ordinary information?
Will the system incorrectly block legitimate users?
The difficulty does not mean youth protections are unnecessary. It means poorly designed protections can create additional harm.
What Is the Psychology of Internet Fame?
Internet fame offers a reward that is difficult to reproduce offline.
A creator may publish something and suddenly receive:
Thousands of views
Hundreds of comments
New followers
Interview requests
Media attention
Financial opportunities
That first surge can feel extraordinary.
Once it becomes normal, however, the creator may need a larger result to experience the same satisfaction.
A video with 1,000 views once felt successful. Later, anything below 10,000 may feel like failure.
This resembles the hedonic treadmill: people adapt to improved circumstances and begin treating them as the new baseline.
Why Do Creators Become Obsessed With Metrics?
Social platforms convert audiences into numbers:
Views
Followers
Likes
Shares
Watch time
Reach
Engagement rate
Those numbers help creators understand performance and sell sponsorships.
They can also conceal the human scale involved.
Three hundred views may seem insignificant on a dashboard. Three hundred people gathered in one room would feel substantial.
When the number becomes the primary goal, creators may stop asking whether the content is useful and begin asking only whether it performs.
How Do Algorithms Shape Creative Decisions?
Creators often learn which formats receive reach:
More extreme hooks
Conflict
Emotional language
Faster edits
Polarizing opinions
Before-and-after transformations
Highly simplified advice
Reactions to trending topics
A creator may believe they are freely choosing a style while adapting continuously to platform incentives.
That can produce a cycle:
Extreme content performs well.
The creator repeats it.
The audience begins expecting it.
Competitors adopt similar tactics.
The original extreme becomes normal.
A stronger version is required to stand out.
Jamie argues that online extremity repeatedly becomes normalized, pushing creators toward continued escalation.
What Is the Creator Economy?
The creator economy includes people who build audiences and earn money through:
Advertising revenue
Sponsorships
Affiliate links
Subscriptions
Courses
Merchandise
Donations
Speaking
Consulting
Platform payments
Linktree has estimated that more than 200 million people globally identify as creators, although estimates differ depending on how “creator” is defined. Its 2024 commerce report surveyed 1,562 Linktree users and found that many creators were still struggling to convert audience attention into sustainable income. (Linktree)
The creator economy is economically significant but does not operate like a traditional labor market.
Creators often lack:
Stable income
Benefits
Collective bargaining
Predictable distribution
Transparent rules
Control over platform changes
Reliable appeals
Their businesses remain dependent on algorithms they cannot inspect.
Is Going Viral a Form of Labor?
Yes, but it is unstable labor.
Creators may spend hours researching, filming, editing, publishing, responding, and studying analytics without knowing whether a post will reach anyone.
When content succeeds, the platform, advertisers, agencies, and creator may all benefit.
When it fails, the creator often absorbs the full cost.
The dream of viral success can therefore keep people producing even when the financial return is minimal.
Why Is Sharing So Important?
The share button turns audience members into distributors.
People share content because it is:
Funny
Outrageous
Useful
Frightening
Identity-affirming
Emotionally intense
Socially valuable
A platform does not need to distribute every piece of content directly. Users help spread it through their own networks.
That is why “viral” remains such an effective metaphor.
The content moves through social contact, and the viewer can feel compelled to pass it onward.
What Responsibilities Do Influencers Have?
Influencers are not solely responsible for platform design.
They still make ethical choices about:
Products
Sponsorships
Health claims
Financial advice
Gambling
Weight-loss marketing
Political messaging
Disclosure
Audience age
A creator may be legally permitted to promote a product while still acting irresponsibly toward a young or vulnerable audience.
Useful questions include:
Did the creator verify the claim?
Is the sponsorship disclosed?
Could the product cause harm?
Is the audience capable of understanding the risk?
Is the creator presenting experience as expertise?
Would the creator recommend it without payment?
What Responsibilities Do Brands Have?
Brands fund the platform economy.
They can influence platform behavior by deciding where advertisements appear and which creators receive sponsorships.
Brand-safety systems already attempt to prevent advertisements from appearing beside terrorism, graphic violence, or other objectionable material.
A broader ethical standard could also consider:
Youth-directed harmful content
Body-image pressure
Predatory financial products
Steroid or supplement misinformation
Gambling
Nonconsensual synthetic media
Creators with repeated deceptive behavior
Advertising money is not neutral. It rewards the media environment in which it appears.
Can Social Media Be Made Safe?
No single intervention will solve the problem.
Possible reforms include:
Less addictive default settings for minors
Clearer notification controls
Stronger privacy protections
Greater algorithmic transparency
Independent research access
Limits on targeted advertising to children
Better sponsorship disclosure
Meaningful platform audits
Digital-literacy education
Easier user controls
Accountability for deceptive design
The challenge is reducing harm without creating universal identity tracking, eliminating useful communities, or protecting only the largest companies.
Key Takeaways
A Los Angeles jury awarded $6 million in a landmark case involving Meta and YouTube.
The jury assigned 70% responsibility to Meta and 30% to YouTube.
Both companies are appealing.
The case challenges product design—not only harmful user content.
Infinite scroll removes natural stopping points.
Algorithmic rewards can encourage compulsive use and repeated checking.
Section 230 remains important to the open internet, but its application to platform design is disputed.
Strong age verification can create privacy and surveillance risks.
Internet fame can normalize rapidly, making creators chase larger metrics.
Creator income depends on opaque systems creators do not control.
Influencers, brands, platforms, regulators, parents, and educators all have distinct responsibilities.
Media literacy and better design are both necessary.
Questions Answered in This Episode
What was the verdict in the Meta and YouTube addiction case?
The jury awarded $6 million and found Meta 70% responsible and YouTube 30% responsible for the plaintiff’s harm.
Are Meta and YouTube appealing?
Yes. Both companies have appealed the verdict.
Does Section 230 protect social-media algorithms?
The answer remains disputed. Some courts distinguish between liability for user content and liability for a company’s own allegedly harmful design decisions.
Why is infinite scroll addictive?
It removes stopping points and continuously delivers unpredictable rewards selected through personalized recommendations.
Is social-media addiction an official diagnosis?
Clinical terminology varies. Researchers often use phrases such as problematic or compulsive social-media use.
What is the creator economy?
It is the market of people earning money through online audiences, sponsorships, advertising, subscriptions, products, or platform payments.
Are influencers responsible for audience harm?
They do not control the entire platform, but they remain responsible for sponsorships, claims, disclosure, and the foreseeable risks of what they promote.
About the Hosts
Jamie Cohen
Jamie Cohen is a media scholar, professor, writer, and expert on internet culture, online extremism, memes, media literacy, and the manosphere.
Website: jamesncohen.com
Substack: New Media Homework
Destinee Day
Destinee Day is a marketing strategist and founder of Rudy & Company. Her work focuses on branding, digital strategy, communications, online influence, and responsible marketing.
Website: rudyandcompany.com
Continue the Conversation
When does healthy self-improvement become compulsive optimization? Should brands and journalists use terms such as looksmaxxing casually—or does that help fringe ideologies enter mainstream culture?
Follow Network Issues for more conversations about internet culture, the manosphere, media literacy, social platforms, masculinity, advertising, and the systems shaping how people see themselves.
-
Destinee Day (00:01.218)
All right, welcome back to our latest episode of Network Issues. Issues? Did I pronounce that very European? Yeah, we'll leave it in. Why not? Today we're going to talk about the current, well, there's two lawsuits happening against Meta at the moment, but really we're going to talk about the one that alleges that
Jamie (00:06.258)
Issues. I like to say issues though. Issues is very British. ha, funny. He restart that.
Destinee Day (00:29.93)
Meta and Google have created an addiction atmosphere that is impacting our youth. So Jamie, do you want to start us off?
Jamie (00:42.494)
Yeah, I mean, this is a subject that's really, really close to my heart because it implies a lot in education, especially when you do internet studies. It also, we have to be consistently reminded that the last regulations on social media are from the 1990s. So we live in a world that's inherited by very first principles regulations. So they haven't really been updated in any meaningful way. And today, the real...
The push of course is like multifaceted and there's like, well, we should talk a lot about not only the case of addiction, the term addiction is important one here, but also like the thing that's not in this case, which is a fight against section 230, which is a whole other case for the kids online safety act and a bunch of 19 or so bills focusing on section 230, which is different. this case is fascinating because it's about a 20 year old woman.
who alleges that platforms like meta platforms, including Instagram and Facebook and in search engines in general are basically tuned to create addictive traits. In other words, like you get on and you can't get off and slowly you become attached to it. It means that like there is not just no outside to it, but like your light, your chemistry inside your body changes to be reliant on it. And so they're alleging it's similar to the way that like
gambling would actually operate like slot machines or cigarettes. So they're using cigarettes as their main prosecution. it's a usable, it's a very usable thing for prosecution because cigarettes literally were deemed safe for years and years and years. And like, wasn't until like the 1960s. So it's almost 60, 70 years after cigarettes began advertising that it was deemed problematic. And it wasn't until the 90s.
when like reparations were like put in in like regulation. So it's a hundred years. It took a century for us to basically figure out that cigarettes, the thing, the smoke, smoke in your lungs is, is damaging to your health. And of course those cases are applied across the field now because that same model that cigarette companies, huge companies, the tobacco lobby, I think is still the third biggest lobby in the United States. The tobacco lobby operates in this very
Jamie (03:07.658)
covert propagandistic way to basically ensure people that they're on the right side of history. And so that model is so successful that like anti-climate change regulation basically sits inside the same thing. So it's fascinating that that's a good case. Of course, then you have Zuckerberg and his lawyers basically saying that in order to call it addictive,
we're in the wrong field to do that. And it's really like an update to the DSM book to find out what is addiction. So it's kind of like that semantics game about like, what does it? But we all know at least since 2020 or 2021 when Francis Hogan, the whistleblower released the papers that became what we now know call the Facebook papers, 30,000 documents that clarify the internal messaging that happens inside of Facebook.
that they're aware it causes harm. They're aware, the insiders, the people in the offices, not us, the people who work for Meta. So it's kind of, it's a fascinating case because you're looking at like, wait, you guys know it's harmful, and literally like Mark Zuckerberg apologized. Like once you do that, is that culpability? So it's a lot, there's a lot in this case.
Destinee Day (04:27.904)
Yeah, I just actually listened to a whole podcast episode about the addictive nature and how these algorithms are designed to lights and brightness and that scroll features like pulling the slot machine, what's going to come up next, you don't know. so to introduce a generation to that.
that is not fully developed, that already struggles with mental health issues. I mean, I was a teenage girl and I didn't have social media back then, but like it was magazines, right? And those weren't designed like a slot machine. And my generation still struggled with it. So to just let this loose on a generation is highly irresponsible of everybody. Like there has to be some kind of a regulation.
Jamie (05:18.878)
Yeah.
Destinee Day (05:23.0)
to handle this.
Jamie (05:23.658)
or at least some sort of accountability, know, it's, so the thing about social media, let's split it into two parts so we can make sure the discussion's right. One is the content and one is the system that delivers the content, okay? So section 230, just to clear that up, is a regulation from 1996 that basically says that platforms are not responsible for the stuff that's on the platform. I'm a pro, I think there's problems in section 230, because we're literally almost, well, we're now 30 years on.
But I am pro section 230 because it allows blogs to exist. It allows people to contribute in any way. It allows people to have opinions that normally you couldn't get anywhere because you have to be reliant on whatever platform it is. We live in an era where social media has colonized the web. And back when there was like a million websites you could go and play with and stumble upon was this great app that you could click and jump around the internet. Like now we're not there. have, we basically have four websites.
And so these four websites have dominated all content at this moment, which in another discussion someday we could have, which is that people I think are revolting against that, you know, like moving away from these four platforms. But in the meantime, it is the main delivery mechanism. Now on that note, as the delivery mechanism, which is what we'll talk about with this, it is these four or five colonized internet spaces are advertising platforms. That's what they do. They are for advertising. This is, these are.
Their primary income is from advertising. So you're really looking at a commodified environment that any advertiser, brand, is aware that this is how you get information to people. But like you just said, which is like the most fascinating part, there was no anticipation in 1996 of the infinite scroll. know, like that, I remember when that developed, I don't remember which platform did it first. It might've been Twitter, it might've been Tumblr, but I remember that day when you could scroll to the bottom and it kept.
going and like, you were just like, whoa, this is wild because that is the first time in internet history where you can now see things that were no longer your friends content being presented to you. Traditionally, it was who you follow is the content you see. The problem that platforms found was that you run out. It hits the bottom. At some point you run out of things that people have posted. They decided that they would basically introduce you to content that was outside of your friend space by adding a scroll.
Jamie (07:47.133)
and a mathematical system that leveraged content from other people's feeds that must have been doing well there that they want to share into your space. Zuckerberg at the time, of course, used his age old Facebook messaging, which is, just trying to connect people. Which obviously we know now looking at the past, a high recommendation to read the book, Careless People, because we know that that just is like not true. But it is, it's, it's,
It's tough to ground this in a reality in which this isn't built to attach people to it. Like it's hard because with the infinite scroll with algorithmic black boxes, like we don't know what's in them. We don't know what the math is. So I think it's hard to even compare it to gambling because at least gambling on those wheels, it's a finite number of choices. I mean, sure, you could pull that wheel a hundred thousand times and maybe not get the same thing.
but at least the box itself is static. So the algorithm inside of a slot machine is built for addictive purposes. So it's like, we don't know what's in the slot machine. We'll never give that information. We still don't know what's in the algorithm on the internet. The difference, of course, is the slot machine is a commodified object. You're putting money into it. And the internet is you are the money.
Destinee Day (09:10.456)
Ooh, ow, gross. I was thinking about...
Jamie (09:11.914)
Hey.
Destinee Day (09:17.934)
Do you remember the Facebook era of Farmville where people literally were putting money into the algorithm to keep their stupid virtual farm alive? And I think to a certain extent brands have like, I do advertising online and primarily through social media networks and it can get addicting to put ad dollars and almost anyone can do it.
Jamie (09:20.856)
yeah.
Destinee Day (09:48.038)
And guess what happens when you put in ad dollars to these platforms? You get more followers. And that is essentially part of an aspect of this lawsuit is that this young woman was inflating her numbers by creating all of these ghost accounts to go in and have a higher friend count, have higher likes.
which is really sad, but also is very reminiscent to me of gambling behavior. If you have someone that's addicted to gambling, they will empty bank accounts, they will, you know, make up stories to friends and family. And it's not just gambling, it's any addict that does that. But that behavior really threw me when I was reading through the lawsuit, like, no. But that, feel like that's almost very normalized for youths nowadays.
Jamie (10:45.086)
Yeah, I mean, it is the reason why the debate about addiction keeps coming up because I mean, could talk like I talked about this in the film, Anything for Fame. Like this is this is my point. My point is that Internet fame is unique. Internet fame is a real thing and it is unique and it is so unique because it does use the chemicals of addiction, dopamine as a as a reward system inside your own head. But it's also like you can never achieve the same high ever again, just like a drug. So
the first time you become internet famous or the first time you feel that algorithmic boost or like get attention, nothing, there's no analog for how that feels. Maybe, I mean, maybe if you hit a grand slam, but like the odds are really low. The difference for internet is that anyone can do it. So it's like the odds for you to become like a major sports figure and hit a grand slam are unfortunately extremely low. Maybe let's just say maybe one in a billion. So that's pretty bad.
considering the lottery is one in 93 million and then the odds of internet fame is probably one in seven. So you can create content. And I know this now, like now, like experimenting with video content like this and like trying to build a platform. Like I just made a random video and it like left my algorithmic space and ended up in like the Reels section. And like, it was like neat. Like for a few seconds, there's like that, wow, holy. Like there's things that go out there. And I wrote a couple of articles for Forbes that went viral.
And it was like neat watching that number go up, like, whoa, wow, people are actually interacting with this content. like, it's, can't explain it either. You can't go to like somebody and be like, my God, I went into interfaith internet famous. Cause unless somebody else has, there's no, you're not, you're just talking to yourself. And I think like they platforms love that because one it's you're now addicted and like, I'm going to use that term. Like I know I'm not going to say it from a psychological or DSM perspective because I'm not a doctor. Like I'm, I'm a cultural studies doctor.
Destinee Day (12:29.155)
Right.
Jamie (12:42.974)
That is the wrong doctor to save lives. But the feeling of like, I must return enters your brain. And that to me is like what it feels like. Like I don't gamble. I used to gamble, then I lost my money. And like, I was like, I don't really like this. This isn't as fun anymore. And I guess like the internet's only recourse isn't the loss of money, but actually the loss of like good stuff, like eventually becomes poor because of
Destinee Day (12:45.134)
you
Jamie (13:10.524)
inbuilt misogyny or trolling or racism or all the things that fight back against you. So it means like the platform is negative on the front and negative on the back. know, it's like gambling, at least you might occasionally hear that thing go off and like people circled around you as all the coins pour out. know, like in this case, it's you're you're pretty alone. Like we're talking, but I'm like this. I'm alone in a room, you know, so social media is a very isolationist project. This is also like
I think what you just said about normalizing it is really important because I think that allows the deregulation that comes around like cash, Kalshi Polymarket and predictive markets that basically are incentivized because if gambling exists, then so can this. so their Polymarket is somewhere between social media and gambling. So it's already like that gray space of problematic interactions with reality.
This is hard to just even think from a wide perspective because it does require people to have time to talk about it. A court case is great, but you also have to remember court cases are dependent on juries, and juries are made up of people like us, and it requires several people, prosecutors and defense. The reliance on the future is narrowed to six people, so it's tough.
Destinee Day (14:29.6)
Yeah, that's scary. Absolutely scary. I mean, going back to what you said, I feel like I want to highlight just a few experiences that I've seen, with that dopamine hit and then people getting used to it because, I've seen it a couple of times specifically when I've worked in startups and you get your first
It could either be viral post or keynote speaking opportunity or you know name that that user numbers for your product go really high and the whole everyone's like yes, we work so hard and it's awesome and then Your numbers even out and you're looking for that next spike but also I have a client and We started his social media from nothing from zero this summer
He is steadily climbing at a follower rate of about a thousand followers every three weeks. So we're growing pretty quick, right? And this is, I have a weekly conversation. This is the conversation I get every single week where he used to get really excited that he had a thousand views on a video. Now that moved up to 10,000 views and he's less impressed with a thousand. His video gets a thousand. He's like, what's wrong with it?
Jamie (15:50.879)
Destinee Day (15:56.43)
Right then his video gets 20 000 You know, then it goes to that. Well, then the video that gets 10 000. What's wrong with it? Right? Um, he was just on an interview with business insider He that happened three weeks ago this interview came out He's still watching it every single day to watch those numbers climb because it's one of the highest Uh viewed videos. It's at half a million video views and I had said
I think this'll get 300,000. So I was off, but he still goes back and watches it every day. And so he gets used to the numbers, the daily numbers, and is less impressed by them. Even though it's wildly successful. I'm like, people reach out to you, your follower count is crazy. Do you know how crazy that is? Like to have consistent growth like that? And it's...
Jamie (16:37.265)
Yeah.
Destinee Day (16:53.388)
You know, it's like, okay, well, what's the next one gonna be? What's the next one? And every single time it gets upped, like, I say he's not impressed. He's still happy about it. But every single time it's like, well, let's get bigger. Let's get bigger. And you get addicted to that.
Jamie (17:06.804)
Yeah.
It is, but then that's like, what's weird about it is it's like, you're not seeing the viewers anymore. seeing the numbers. And I think that's what social media likes to normalize to the dehumanization part, because try to imagine. Like when the back to the NIL of so when I gave that talk to 300 people, 300 is a lot. Like that's a lot of humans. And so if you try to picture 300 people like that, to me, if I got 300 views on something like that's a lot, but it is right. Right. When you start getting successful and
and you start having a base. In other words, like your base number starts becoming your assumption, right? Like you have 10,000 followers, therefore everything should be 2000, like everything, because you have to assume one fifth are always in court and interacting. And so then you kind of get offended. You're like, what, why, what's going on? Because like one fifth aren't, you know, so you, you kind of like start thinking, then you start beating yourself up. Like, what did I do different? What went wrong? What kind of thing? So now instead of like improving,
Destinee Day (17:43.366)
Hmm?
Jamie (18:07.486)
like your content, start improving your metrics, you know? So now you're like moving away from that to more of a mechanical version of your content, which is like algorithmically sensitive. And then again, goes back to like what Zuckerberg and Mosseri are capable of in Facebook and Meta and Instagram, when we don't know what the machines do. And so like, we don't know how that works. Like we don't know how the metrics work. We also don't know if they squeeze it.
Like we don't know if they could juice it. there's, haven't, literally we don't know. Like that's the weirdest part of using social media is like, there was like these old quotes about gambling and like slot machines. was like the third one in from the aisle is like the most hitting, you know, cause it was supposed to draw you in. So it's like, get consistencies in gambling that you got kind of figure out. With social media, it's like a literal shot in the dark unless you're hyper aware of the bias built into the machine and exploit it.
You know, so this is where it gets weird because it's like the line goes up, right? The metrics go up. You could do it. You can manipulate the algorithm to make the line go up. It doesn't mean moving away from your traditional content and leaning in. My book argues that the Internet, there's no such thing as extremism because it's a paradox, because once you've done something extreme, you normalize it.
And then it becomes, move towards extreme and you normalize it and then you do it again and again. So everything moves to the extremes on the internet because you're basically feeding the algorithm. Now, as you're doing that, you're normalizing that all the way around. So everybody else has to basically meet you where you're at and basically normalize that extreme. So you're lifting the algorithms with everybody simultaneously only.
Like you've mentioned this to me when you're talking about marketing and branding, but only for like Mosseri to tweak the algorithm again and then everybody's going to start over. You know, it's like, you just don't know how to be even reliant or like even trust the algorithm enough to do the manipulation unless you're like a really bad actor.
Destinee Day (20:18.062)
Well, do know what always gets me too? I feel like, I feel like there's like this, this movement, everyone's like hijacking the algorithm. And then there's also this movement online. That's like, the algorithm isn't real. It's just creating content that people resonate with. And I'm like,
What? When were we there last? Someone please tell me because then explain to me how I can post two videos that are the exact same at a different time and they hit completely differently. Then that's where I'm just so skeptical of that. Like, yeah.
Jamie (21:03.132)
I'm very skeptical of that. Yeah, I wish that were true. I so wish that were true. But the creator economy, that term we use, and I talk about this with my students, creators like, you know this, but creators don't have an economy. They don't have a labor place. There's no such thing as social media star. The creator economy is worth somewhere in the range of $6 billion, according to Goldman Sachs. But there's no union.
There's no collective movement. There's no way to communicate across to the other ones. It would be platform based. YouTube in the early 2010s instituted something called MCNs when the partner program started hitting off. And MCNs were multi-channel networks, which was basically a corporate union. They basically bought up a bunch of channels. In Maker Studios case, it was like 10,000 channels. Maker Studios later got sold to Disney.
And they basically profit shared. So smaller creators would get some slice of the big pie. But of course, it always leaned. Maker had PewDiePie in it. So he was making the big chunks, and the little creators were making barely anything. So it's not an economic model that is about resonance of content. It is an economic model of how can we collectively exploit the algorithm. That's what it is.
Destinee Day (22:24.856)
So to hit on that and then to drive back into the addiction conversation, the creators that I know that make money by being creators and narrowing this down even further, the creators that I know that make money off their content online, and I'm not talking about school courses, I'm not talking about that. They post content on Facebook or YouTube and they make money from those platforms, right?
both of those types of creators get paid for views. So to get paid for a view and to have enough views to pay you out money, what has to happen? You have to play into the algorithm. You have to have some kind of extreme hook because that's what people, that's what's gonna stop people. That's what's gonna make them watch it and that's gonna make them wanna share it.
So it's like a, it's a disease like addiction, like also if you could share addiction, that's what I think the share button is. It's a virus sometimes.
Jamie (23:31.613)
It is. Well, that's where viral media comes from. But yeah, it's the, in theory, if the internet worked well, it'd be more like mushrooms, like mycelia. Things are connected to each other and they're reliant on each other. But the reason why the word virus works is it works more like a cough, you know? That share button, it just sprays out. And then it's all receptive. Like who gets to see it? And it's like that viral video core knowledge of like, you can't be alone with the content, so you must share it. know, it's like, that's a weird compulsion too. It's like zombies, right?
Destinee Day (23:44.726)
Thank
Jamie (24:01.61)
zombies have to eat the brains, they have to. So you have to, you're compelled to share that, which is like, guess that's like my whole thing about like why we see movies about zombies. just cause we're like projecting that fear. But the creator economy, you're talking basically about creators and stuff here. Like the creator economy right now, the people who create for a living, it's 200 million people. And this is based on a 2024 study from Linktree.
Destinee Day (24:14.062)
You
Jamie (24:30.942)
which means it's obviously more now. So 200 million people rely, 200 million globally rely on income from content or let's just say what it is, algorithmic benefits, know, like working within the viewer space of like making sure you're at the share button sends it to somebody else. So that's an economy, it is, but it's like so detached from like any job market that you're like, well, it can't be addictive because it's all voluntary. And it's like, well,
Like that's where question comes in. And so now it's like, if you think about it from the consumer side, right? So I've been pushed into like creation, right? Like making content. And it's like, this is by you, yes, by you and by friends. And it's like, I genuinely don't like this, but like as a former TV producer, no, I love this by the way. I don't mean you. mean like, I mean like the idea of recording myself.
Destinee Day (25:12.652)
But me doing this.
Destinee Day (25:22.848)
No, I know.
No, but also, right, I could, I have tons of recommendations for how we could exploit this and blow this up, but that means exploit.
Jamie (25:34.215)
yeah, we can grift. We know enough to grift. Yes. And that is a thing that we can do. There's also like the the idea of like it's one of the things that I keep reminding myself is like, yes. And again, back to the Anything for Fame film, which is that like anyone can do it. But that's not exactly true. You know, not anyone can do it. There's a lot of content out there that can't do it. It's not a bad thing either. I am pro cringe. OK, there is a lot of content that is like
meant not really for a lot of people to see and it accidentally goes viral for the wrong reasons. But the skill set of actually doing it, why it is only 200 or 300 million people is because it is a low number. That is a, if everyone could do it, you'd be looking at the billions, you know? But the thing that makes this different, the thing that makes this space different, regardless of how you algorithmically challenge it is because algorithms themselves are a technology to funnel content for profit.
Okay, that is different. The reason why I'm excited to see how this case ends up is because I always try to remind people that in the 19... Let's go way back to the previous screen media, right? So 1948, one in four households had a television, like a box in their house, and the TV was like this big. It was like small. So it was a very collective unit. Like people would sit around it and like watch on this very small box, which is smaller than our laptop screens today. Like that's how small it was.
People gather around them. A show called Texaco Star Theater comes out, a sponsored content show to basically, it's Milton Burrell's show, it's a variety show. And everybody's like, it's made to sell oil, it's made to sell gasoline. It's like, no, it was made to sell televisions. It helped other people get television. By 1958, all households held television. And so 1956 was a big moment. 1954 to Edward R. Murrow, it's a big moment, but that's a
topic for another discussion. 1956, Ed Sullivan, the late night show, one of like two, which is crazy to think about, invites Elvis Presley onto his show. And Elvis Presley goes on to a wild audience. And I show this to my students, and maybe you could cut this in if you want, but like he goes in and he sings and he dances and moves his hips. And he's visit on his third visit, Jack Gould, the New York Times TV critic.
Jamie (27:59.647)
basically calls for regulations on television because it is showing children pornography. Like that is what he thought. Like, but now, wait, just the point of that is that TV can put commercials on, but no one knows who's seeing it. You can't tell. I have no idea who's on the other side of the screen when I make television. It could be anybody. It could be a baby sitting there. could be an elderly person. You just don't know who's sitting on the other side. But Zuckerberg sure as shit knows who's sitting on the other side of the screen. He knows it.
Destinee Day (28:05.473)
Mm-hmm.
Destinee Day (28:27.878)
God, he knows. They have so much details and they have way more details than we think that they do that they don't share with advertising, whatever that means, right? I know I used to have a lot more insight into the details of who I was running ads to and who saw my ads and then there were some regulations and now I don't have that much information that I used to but I know Facebook does. They still have it, they still know.
Jamie (28:29.586)
Yeah!
Destinee Day (28:57.178)
And they don't do anything to protect the privacy of their users, which is a part of the second lawsuit that we can talk about at a different time. they also, what gets me about the entire thing is that they actively know that age verification does not work.
They know there's a younger generation on their platforms and their response to it was to create teen accounts that were safe for teens but actually are not even in the slightest. And so that is
Jamie (29:43.05)
Mm-mm. Mm-mm.
Destinee Day (29:48.514)
Like, I don't know, the whole thing I was like, you know exactly what you're doing and you're trying to put a whole PR spin on this thing and it is actually disgusting.
Jamie (29:59.147)
Yeah, because there's not enough teeth. Like our regulators, our government doesn't have enough... Because the people who run the platforms, the four sites that run the internet are oligarchs. And it's really hard to push back against them because they contain massive amounts of power. And you're right, like it is, we know it's not, this isn't really disputable. We know the platforms cause harm. They are aware. Like they're especially aware when it comes to teenagers, the most vulnerable class of this. Children in particular,
Like children under the age of 13 aren't supposed to use the internet, but like that is really a parental decision because it's really, can't, like you said, age gating never works. It hasn't worked, it won't work. That's why I don't like COSO or any of these regulations. It's because children do not have identification. They don't carry ID cards. So in order to identify a child, you need to use biometrics. You have to scan their face. You have to have parents upload.
data to make sure it's even their child, you know, so to speak, like who's who's the guardian. So it's a bunch of surveillance. And then you have to make the second assumption on that, which is like, all right, if they collect all the data, who who is collecting that data? Because the platforms don't have the server space to do all that. So they're going to hire another company to be the gate. And once the gate is up, can you trust them? Can you trust they're not going to leak that data? Can you trust that in five years from now that data is not going to be weaponized against you? Like, we don't know. Like, we just don't know. I can name
40 or 50 instances where data has been misused against people themselves. So if you wanna do that with babies, bad idea, bad, bad, bad idea. So people forget that age gating is a myth designed specifically for autocratic surveillance. That's what it really is. But you're right, teen accounts were never going to work. Teens in general, developing teenagers, your mind is already, teenage years are already pretty bad.
And so not bad in the sense of like things are bad, but bad in like, you're trying to make sense of a world where your hormones are going wild, like the life around you is switching and you're moving from like childhood to adulthood over a many year period. It's not a slight switch. so putting platforms out there where it's like, can just like basically being cavalier about it, where they're just like, whatever kids grow up and this is just part of it, is irresponsible. It's just irresponsible. And it's like, you can't really like.
Jamie (32:19.302)
Sue somebody for being irresponsible, but you can do that to liquor stores. Gambling, you can't go to a casino under 18. They keep you out. So it's hard because you can't show an ID to make it happen and then asking them to show an ID, ask for exploitation. So it's hard for this to work. But again, comes back to, Ed Sullivan wasn't going to not let Elvis Presley on the screen.
Okay, he knew it made ratings, which meant that more advertisers would put their ads on his show. That's what he knew. And so they knew that if the metrics go up and more people are using it, the more advertisers show up. So then it really comes down to the brands. They're the ones that have to be pretty responsible at it. That makes them responsible for the funding of these platforms. They become this weird tertiary responsibility zone of like,
Well, just as they don't like, well, just as brand safety works, brands do not like their ads being near horrible content because it's an endorsement. It's similar to when Tom Brady, Steph Curry, Gisele Bunshin, a whole bunch of them got in trouble following the collapse of FTX. FTX was this crypto mega app. during, I forgot which Super Bowl, it like 22, I think. It was the Crypto Super Bowl.
These crypto ads are just going over and over again. Now, FTX, a year later, collapsed and lost, I think it was $66 billion. No, okay, it was 32 billion for Sam Bankman Fried alone. So it was a lot of money. Yes, yeah, literally a turd. mean, that's a great, not enough bad words to define somebody, so turd works really well. But the lawsuit, the original lawsuit against...
Destinee Day (33:56.268)
What a turd.
Destinee Day (34:00.822)
you
Jamie (34:09.578)
Tom Brady and Steph Curry was because they were likely aware of the faults of FTX before they endorsed it, which made them culpable for responsibility. Later, a judge dismissed it in 2025 away from the celebrities. FTX is still beholden to debt to tens of thousands of people who lost millions upon billions, resulting in suicides, resulting in loss of housing. Like people invested this because people like Tom Brady said, yeah, this is a good investment. And so,
Brands, when they put their ads on a platform, knowing full well that the black box of the algorithm is also promoting potentially body harm or looks maxxing or any of the things that are aimed towards vulnerable young people, there's one that's like, A, the content moderators should tighten that down a bit so that type of material doesn't even get seen, and B, brands should just be like, hey, we won't come back until it isn't there.
You know, they have that say. And so it is, it's tough. Like this is tough. But again, if the algorithms were more transparent, you can't ask for full because it is competition. Capitalism requires some sort of a property. But there's just like this loss of ability to discuss it because the people like Mosseri and people like Zuckerberg are just like, sure, it's normal to spend 16 hours on a screen. That's normal.
Destinee Day (35:37.134)
That was such an incredibly insane statement.
Jamie (35:43.156)
Like, what can you do that 16 hours at your family wouldn't call somebody?
Jamie (35:52.779)
Like knitting? Like what if you knit? Like just say you knit and like 16 hours goes by of you knitting. When does somebody like eventually, like it's also like he doesn't realize like that's daily, you know?
Destinee Day (36:03.0)
Yeah, consistent daily chronic knitting use. Yeah, someone would show up at your house and be like, hey man, are you okay?
Let's go see a therapist.
Jamie (36:19.37)
there would be an intervention at some point. Like somebody would be like, we gotta talk, you know? It's like, so it's just that we've normalized screen use to the point where we don't see it as a problem. So they're using that loophole. They're in that space.
Destinee Day (36:32.332)
What is your take on, right, because we're talking about creator economy and you brought up the FTX thing. know, people like the Kardashians have been highly criticized for who they take ad dollars from. right, influencer marketing. You know, they have promoted things in the past that are, you know, weight loss.
things that are very harmful that don't actually do any weight loss. And there's millions of little girls that look up to these people. And I feel like, yes, these companies are responsible for the slot machine nature in which they design it. But do you have any hard lines on where...
Brands or creators fall in this responsibility to the audience at the end of the day like right we talked briefly about big tobacco like they became highly regulated it took 60 70 years for it to fully go, you know away but
I think that's where I get all caught up up in it because I also am a creator I also manage a few accounts and they I have days where I'm like I'm shutting it all down like we're going zero like
Jamie (37:51.119)
That's a personal ethics question. really hard. That's a phenomenal question. It really comes down to, and not to plug that film again, like Ava Louise is one of the characters in Anything for Fame. And she explains very explicitly that her cynicism against the mainstream media, that they could say a story and it goes out there, gives her the permission to...
mess around with the media. If everybody messes around, what's the borderlands for her? If profit and attention appears because she's just using tactics that the systems use, is she culpable for that? Is she the one that has to be the responsible one? In the film, she does talk about her friend who died by suicide and she feels genuinely terrible. You could see it's a sad moment in the film. And it's because of the harms that happen from these spaces. It is at this point,
you can't put this back in the bag. There's half the Earth's population uses a social media one way or another. So there are more people on Facebook today than have access to clean water, you know, so it's, it is like, and it's there are countries on this planet that use meta products to upgrade their sovereignty. So it's, this is hard, because a small loss small, I'm gonna use the term small here, but a small lawsuit from California is going to be, it's going to shape
the way that we talk about this in the future. And it really does have implications to creators in particular, because it's like in a world where the incentives are low, the jobs are low, the creator opportunities are high. What are you supposed to say? Don't do it? this is, it's all, and then it's like, again, it comes down to like just platforming. Like just my desire to publish a book ends up being like, well, you need to have a presence. You need to make sure that there's an audience. It's like there's incentives for authors. There's like,
Jason Pargin is one of my favorite authors all time. wrote John Dies in the End. He did the Zoe series. He is one of my favorite creators. He's just like a great, he just has a very casual TikTok presence and like a very good creator presence. But he's very transparent. He explains how much work he has to do as a creator to make sure that his books sell. Like, so it is like all industries are reliant on the creator economy, I think at this point. So we should just.
Jamie (40:09.546)
Again, this I have to say is like people like Zuckerberg, instead of buying or selling, I don't even know what he's doing that $170 million Miami mansion. Like there's things he should be focused on that are responsible for the public, the public. don't mean like democracy even like, I mean, just the public. I mean, just the people that he should be somewhat concerned about because one thing that I know is bad for business is losing the customers. All right. And if they are hurting themselves, they lose them. So they walk this fine line that
They're really playing with it here. Same thing as cigarettes. And the one cynicism I have here to note your point is that in the end, when cigarettes got in trouble, they fixed it by creating anti-cigarette ads. So like the truth cigarette ads, that's Philip Morris. So again, it's like, you never know if this ends up getting solved, does Facebook just make the anti-Facebook? I don't know. I don't have much faith in them.
Destinee Day (41:05.742)
Right, and then, I mean, to bring it full circle back to one of our previous episodes, you mentioned sovereignty's use it, what role does our government play? And normally I wouldn't ask that question, except for the fact that our White House currently hijacks the algorithm to send its message. So.
There's so many harmful things that are happening, so many different angles, and it just, at the end of the day, you can always point back to the platform. So.
Jamie (41:41.835)
Yeah. The big takeaway though I wanna leave is that like in this case, I'm more curious of the outcome of this because this is really about the algorithm and not the content because I really do, we do need reforms on privacy. We need reforms on technologies, but like there is this push now that is more, it almost feels propagandistic to end 230 and that is.
that is going to hurt a lot more people than it helps. Like that is, that will end the opportunity for any small creator to have a say. it just, can't, you'll have to be, everyone becomes atomized and independent instantaneously. And then of course, like any vulnerable community that uses the internet's platforms to amplify marginalized groups just simply disappears overnight. And so that is something that I think, yes, needs reform, but does not, at this moment, there's bigger things to worry about. And so,
This is not one of the bigger things to worry about, but again, I think it does come down to if we don't sooner than later find a way to hold the executives or the CEOs of these things somewhat accountable, like even from Grok, like doing CSAM and Nutify apps, like all of that is harm at the top level. And then we're not even like, what we're talking about is like harm at the lowest level, like doom scrolling, know, rotting, you know.
The constant feed that basically tunes the brain down just as though you're pulling the slot machine over and over for hours.
Destinee Day (43:14.678)
It feels like taking a, you know, like sometimes it feels like taking a Xanax that it just like is a gentle, it's, it's you to wind down. It like gives you a gentle knit, like,
Jamie (43:23.252)
LULLY OUT
Jamie (43:27.018)
Mm hmm. And just the way that you've tuned your algorithm to do that, they tuned it for you because you remember the days when you would watch the algorithm too long and the horrors would appear, you know? So now it's like just they know what to do. There's no more of the horrors. Now it's just keeps you on the screen for 16 hours.
Destinee Day (43:47.779)
Well, and I feel the need to say this because I don't feel like a lot of people say it on the internet, but you did change my mind. So I was of the opinion like we should consider an age ban and you brought up several points that actually made me say, that would be a bad idea. And you changed my mind about the subject because I mean, marginalized communities, right? Connectiveness for
youth that are, come from a small town, right? I didn't have any diversity in my town growing up. So, you know, I didn't even think about it because I'm not a part of a marginalized group. And so I was like, wow. Okay. Yeah. I was, that wouldn't work. That's, that's going to be bad. It just as harmful in another swing of the pendulum than what we're getting. And so,
Jamie (44:37.63)
Yes, yeah.
Destinee Day (44:41.59)
I say you changed my mind, but like there is no real awesome solution.
Jamie (44:46.152)
No, not yet. And I don't know if there will be. You can't turn the internet off. We live in this world now. So now we just a matter of mitigating harm. And again, not to throw it directly onto the parents and educators, but this is exactly why I do my job is educators in particular who see kids more than parents do, they need to incorporate critical internet literacy. They have to.
Jamie (45:11.21)
Well, thanks for this conversation. This is like, I'm really passionate about this, as you know. Thank you.
Destinee Day (45:13.614)
I feel like we can talk about it for 40 more minutes, but we'll stop there for today.
Jamie (45:20.947)
Okay.