A collision between state prosecutors and the courts threatens to upend how tech companies operate, with ordinary users footing the bill. State attorneys general and trial lawyers are pushing lawsuits that would hand judges authority over social media business decisions, a recipe for chaos.
The legal assault targets Meta and similar platforms for allegedly addictive design practices that harm children. The impulse to protect young users is understandable. But the courtroom is the worst venue to regulate complex technology policy. Judges lack expertise in algorithm design, content moderation, and the trade-offs inherent in digital platforms.
More troubling is the financial incentive baked into these cases. State AGs build political capital from high-profile wins. Trial lawyers chase contingency fees. Neither group bears the cost of their victories. Those costs flow directly to companies and, by extension, to users through reduced features, higher prices, or both.
If courts impose sweeping restrictions on how platforms operate, compliance will demand expensive systems and staff. Small competitors cannot absorb those costs. The result favors entrenched giants like Meta while strangling startup challengers. That's the opposite of what actual competition policy should achieve.
Congress is the appropriate forum for regulating social media. Elected legislators can weigh evidence, hear from all stakeholders, and craft rules that apply consistently across the industry. They can balance innovation against protection without a jury guessing at technical tradeoffs.
The courthouse path guarantees fragmented, inconsistent rulings that companies cannot possibly follow uniformly. One state's decree contradicts another's. A judge's order becomes obsolete as technology evolves. Users lose features designed elsewhere.
The better move is letting the political process work, messy as it may be, rather than outsourcing tech regulation to litigation.
Author James Rodriguez: "Courts shouldn't be writing technology policy while enriching trial lawyers in the process."
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