Instagram Addiction Trial Shows How Juries Step Into Policy Void

Mark Zuckerberg’s recent testimony in the Instagram social media addiction trial may dominate consumer headlines, but the case represents a more systemic shift for lawyers advising technology companies.

It reflects a recurring theme in the evolution of American law: When legislatures hesitate and public concern reaches a fever pitch, the jury begins to function as the regulator.

The social media addiction litigation unfolding in Los Angeles sits in a policy vacuum. Federal law governing youth digital engagement is fragmented; state-level experiments frequently are tied up in legal challenges. In this ambiguity, responsibility for age verification and safety design is contested across an ecosystem of platforms, app stores, and device makers.

In that vacuum, plaintiffs’ lawyers are turning to tort law to perform a retrospective audit of corporate decision-making.

This isn’t new. Tobacco litigation reshaped marketing and disclosure practices long before Congress enacted comprehensive reforms. Firearms litigation, though navigating different statutory protections, continues to probe the boundaries of public nuisance and product liability where legislation is politically constrained.

In each instance, courts were asked to weigh corporate judgment in areas where lawmakers had drawn no clear lines. For tech companies designing products used by minors, the inflection point has arrived.

For in-house counsel, the immediate lesson isn’t about addiction theory—it’s about governance architecture. When product teams debate engagement features or content moderation, those discussions no longer are mere business strategy—they’re potential litigation exhibits.

The risk environment is intensifying as “speed to market” pressure grows. The integration of artificial intelligence into recommendation systems increases both personalization and legal scrutiny. AI-driven tools can amplify engagement and dynamically adjust content exposure in ways that traditional algorithms couldn’t.

In a courtroom, these capabilities will be reframed as foreseeability of harm. If AI can predict a user’s vulnerability to certain content, the legal argument shifts from “we didn’t know” to “we built a system designed to know, yet we failed to intervene.”

Business teams face existential pressure. In the current arms race between models such as ChatGPT, Claude AI, and Google Gemini, a delay in a new feature can be the difference between market dominance and being an also-ran. If one company tightens guardrails around youth engagement, a competitor may not.

However, regulatory ambiguity doesn’t eliminate accountability; it merely transfers it. Absent any clear statutory standards, juries are asked to decide what was reasonable. Internal emails commodifying tweens as engagement metrics or debates over enforcement gaps can look like protecting profits at the expense of a protected class.

When children are the subject, “industry standard” is rarely a sufficient defense against a grieving parent on the witness stand.

Technology companies face a choice: Help shape industry standards prospectively through legislation or have them dictated through verdicts and settlements. Legislation, even if imperfect, offers defined guardrails and predictability.

Litigation, by contrast, invites hindsight. It allows juries to interpret evolving product design choices against a backdrop of heightened public sensitivity. In a policy vacuum, the jury becomes the regulator by default.

For corporate counsel, the mandate is clear. Governance systems must assume that today’s product design trade-offs will be tomorrow’s deposition topics. Risk identification and mitigation must be integrated into the initial product sprint—not a patch after the fact.

The Instagram trial underscores a broader reality: Regulatory gray zones are unstable when they involve children. If policymakers don’t resolve the tension, the courts will attempt to do so.

The question for technology companies is no longer just “can we build it?” but “can we defend the decision to build it under oath?”

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law, Bloomberg Tax, and Bloomberg Government, or its owners.

Author Information

Justin Daniels is a shareholder in Baker Donelson’s data protection, privacy and cybersecurity practice.

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