Eric Goldman

Meta and Google are some of the most wealthy companies that have ever existed in human history.

And as a result, one scenario is that these cases could literally just knock Google and Meta out of the industry.

They could simply not be able to afford to continue to run their business given the damage that they're exposed to.

Even if that's not the case, the plaintiff's theories put under the microscope a number of the design choices that services make about how to configure their products.

And those design choices, if they are taken away because they create too much legal liability, could radically change the internet.

They could change the way in which we access and consume content because those tools simply will no longer be available.

So I think people are so used to the idea, of course, Google meta will always be there.

They have more money than God does.

And yet the reality is that the cases pose existential threats to some of the things that we use every hour.

The cases themselves target social media, but the legal theories that are at issue in the cases are now being deployed against other parts of the internet.

In particular, plaintiff's groups have initiated cases against...

video game makers and against generative AI model makers that are functionally identical to the arguments at issue in the social media addiction trials.

In other words, the plaintiffs are hoping that they can establish a general broad principle about social media addiction and causation, and then they plan to wield it against other categories of the internet.

So in that sense, not only is social media on trial, but potentially other large parts of the internet, including video games and generative AI, could be affected by the cases.

It's not playing any role in the trials that will start this week.

And the reason why is because the defendants have already made their Section 230 arguments to the judge, and the judge accepted some of those arguments and those claims are no longer part of the case and rejected it for others.

As a result, the jury won't be asked any question about Section 230.

The judge has already answered those questions for now.

But Section 230 will be back in play when this case is appealed.

It's not an if, it's a when.