By Mallory Mattingly
New court documents revealed that YouTube employees deliberately aimed for “viewer addiction” and decided against safety tools for kids.
The documents said that “internal chat logs and presentations from YouTube employees were unsealed ahead of a series of landmark trials slated for this summer in Oakland, Calif., in the US District Court of Northern California. Google-owned YouTube, Meta, Snap, and TikTok are listed as defendants,” the New York Post reported.
John Harding, vice president of engineering at YouTube, was confronted in March by attorneys with an email from an employee that stated the “goal is not viewership, it’s viewer addiction.”
Related: Meta, TikTok, YouTube Will Answer to Addiction Claims in Court
This directly contradicts what YouTube executive Cristos Goodrow said in February: that the app was “not designed to maximize time” nor does YouTube “want anybody to be addicted,” per the New York Post.
This gives consumers even more evidence that big tech companies use them for profit, disregarding their wellbeing.
“A landmark ruling out of Los Angeles could reshape the future of social media. A jury has found Meta and YouTube negligent in their design of their platforms, marking this the first time a social media addiction case has reached a verdict. The jury determined the companies knew their platforms could be harmful, failed to warn users and ultimately caused substantial harm,” ABC10 News reported on Tuesday.
The lawsuit comes as over “2,000 similar lawsuits are still pending, potentially opening the door for even more legal challenges. Some experts are now comparing this moment to the early days of lawsuits against big tobacco.”
The comparison to Big Tobacco references the fact that years ago, the tobacco companies knew there were harmful ingredients in their products but didn’t tell consumers.
“Public health experts say the warning signs have been there for years, with growing concern over youth mental health and the addictive design of social media platforms,” ABC 10 reported. “They argue this ruling doesn’t reveal anything new but instead confirms what researchers, parents, and doctors have been saying.”
Experts agree that social media platforms need to change their format. YouTube and other companies should remove the autoplay feature, the ability to constantly scroll and the ability to gain more likes.
While blame for social media addiction often rests on people’s bad habits, it looks like these companies are actually the ones at fault.
As these cases continue to move forward, this could be a turning point for the tech industry, potentially forcing companies to confront how their platforms impact users, especially children.
Read Next: 2 Billion People Watch YouTube a Month
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