ANALYSIS: Is Meta the Next Marlboro? Two Analysts Take Sides

Last month’s jury verdict against Meta Platforms Inc. and Alphabet Inc. finding the tech giants liable for a user’s addiction harms arising from negligent design, has prompted a familiar, deceptively succinct question: Are we on the cusp of the next wave of Big Tobacco-level liabilities? Or, is this something else—and, if so, what does that “something else” look like?

This question, which will surface in conference receptions, then in client alerts, and eventually in court filings, is a multi-faceted one that resists clean answers—which makes it, in our litigation-centric view, worth exploring all the more.

The two of us approach ...