Nicolette DeLorenzo
92 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. Arguendo 18
Social media platforms profit on their addictive designs that harm the mental health of adolescent users. Up to forty percent of platforms’ users, and therefore a large percentage of their profits, are minors. Some of the elements used to increase profit include targeted advertising and engagement-driven algorithms, which promote harmful content to young users. Research links this content to an increase in mental health disorders, including depression, anxiety, and eating disorders, in America’s youth.
Revelations through reporting, congressional hearings, and quantitative research reveal the detrimental extent of social media’s influence. The uncovering of these harms led to hundreds of lawsuits against social media companies. These lawsuits, especially those focused on mental health disorders, use a product liability theory to hold companies accountable for their “defective design.” Both Congress and the states responded to the increased public attention on these platforms with youth-centric social media legislation. California passed a statute, the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, focused on the design of these platforms.
This Note argues that Congress must enact a Federal Age-Appropriate Design Code Act to combat the harm social media platforms cause to minors. The legal system provides insufficient remedy for these harms because the product liability theory is scarcely tested, and mental health damages are difficult to prove. Social media platforms cannot be trusted to self-regulate because of the financial incentives to use engagement-based algorithms. California’s statute, and other federally proposed legislation, can be a basis for a more effective federal bill. A Federal Age-Appropriate Design Code Act that applies to users under eighteen and remedies design defects of platforms would protect adolescents from the mental health harms caused by these social media companies.
