Tag Archives: social-media

The March 25, 2026 jury verdict in Los Angeles against Meta and Google, paired with the $375 million New Mexico verdict against the same companies the day before, mark a structural shift in how courts conceptualize harm arising from social media platforms. These cases do not merely expand liability. They reframe the legal ontology of digital platforms from neutral intermediaries into potentially defective consumer products.

In this article, we will explore what this means for the way in which we look upon eating disorders … and what therapists and clinicians should know.

For eating disorders, conditions already deeply entangled with algorithmic amplification, body image distortion, and compulsive engagement, the shift in liability for digital platforms is particularly consequential. The emerging litigation theory may provide for the first time a coherent legal pathway to attribute causation and duty in eating disorder related harm.

The recent Meta/Google verdicts succeeded because plaintiffs changed the theory of liability. The old framing was, “You allowed harmful content to exist.” Federal statutes provided immunity for this reasoning. Case dismissed.

The new framing is now, “You designed a system that predictably causes harm.” This is the doctrinal pivot. The plaintiffs were able to bring forth evidence that the platforms knew about harm (e.g., to teens, body image, ED risk) but continued optimizing engagement anyway. This evidence supports claims of negligence, recklessness and malice. This also strengthens the argument that the wrongdoing lies in corporate decision making not user content.

Why This Matters Specifically for Eating Disorders

Eating disorder harm fits the “Design, Not Content” model argued in courtrooms. Eating disorders are not typically triggered by a single post. But by repeated exposure, escalating comparison and behavioral reinforcement. These are clearly algorithmic phenomena.

Unlike traditional media, social media platforms can identify users engaging with dieting and body comparison content. This increases the likelihood of exposure. This frames a plaintiff’s argument that harm is not incidental. It is systematically intensified. There is also substantial evidence that social comparison leads to body dissatisfaction and repeated exposure leads to disordered eating behaviors

This makes it easier to argue that harm was predictable, foreseeable and safer alternatives were available but disregarded.

The recent verdicts are also significant not because they establish a medical causation of eating disorders, but because they elevate platform design and algorithmic exposure into the realm of foreseeable mental health risk.

In effect, the verdicts reinforce three propositions that are directly relevant to clinical practice:

  1. Digital environments can function as risk-amplifying exposures, particularly for adolescents;
  2. Algorithmic curation is not neutral, but can intensify engagement with appearance focused or psychologically harmful content; and
  3. Harm need not arise solely from user intent but may be driven by product design features.

From a standard-of-care perspective, these propositions are likely to influence what constitutes “reasonable” clinical conduct.

Even in the absence of formalized guidelines, foreseeability plays a central role in negligence analysis. As juries begin to recognize social media design as a source of mental health harm, clinicians may be expected to:

  • Screen for social media use with greater specificity (not merely duration, but type of content and engagement patterns);
  • Identify platform-related triggers (e.g., comparison behaviors, exposure to body-ideal content, reinforcement loops);
  • Incorporate digital environment management into treatment planning; and
  • Provide anticipatory guidance to patients and families regarding online risk factors.

Failure to do so over time may be framed as a deviation from evolving professional norms even in the absence of codified standards.

Evolution of Standard of Care Through Litigation Rather Than Consensus

In fields lacking clear clinical standards, the standard of care often evolves through case law, expert testimony, and institutional practice patterns.

The Meta and Google verdicts may accelerate this process by:

  • Providing a judicially recognized framework for linking platform design to mental health harm;
  • Encouraging plaintiffs to incorporate digital exposure into causation narratives; and
  • Pressuring professional organizations to issue more explicit guidance in response.

In this sense, the verdicts may function as de facto catalysts for standard formation even if formal consensus lags behind.

Clinicians and treatment programs that proactively integrate digital-risk assessment may therefore position themselves more favorably relative to an emerging baseline of care.

Implications for Causation Frameworks in Eating Disorders

Historically, eating disorders have been understood through a multifactorial model, incorporating genetic predisposition, temperamental traits, family dynamics, trauma and sociocultural influences. The recent verdicts do not displace this model. However, they may recalibrate the weight assigned to environmental and systemic contributors, particularly those mediated through technology. Importantly, this shift may influence not only clinical practice, but also the narrative frameworks used in litigation and public discourse.

Anticipated Expansion of Social Justice and Structural Etiology Arguments

One of the more complex implications of these developments is the possible expansion of social justice based etiological frameworks, including arguments that locate eating disorders within broader systems of oppression.

Within certain academic and advocacy contexts, eating disorders have increasingly been linked to:

  • Eurocentric beauty standards,
  • Fatphobia,
  • Structural inequities in healthcare access, and
  • Cultural norms associated with what has been termed “White supremacy culture” (e.g., perfectionism, control, individualism).

The Meta and Google verdicts may indirectly reinforce these perspectives in several ways:

1. Externalization of Harm

By attributing liability to platform design rather than solely to individual behavior, the verdicts support a broader shift toward externalizing causation. This aligns with social justice frameworks that emphasize systemic over individual factors.

2. Validation of Environmental Influence

The recognition of algorithmic amplification as harmful lends credibility to arguments that cultural and media environments actively shape pathology, rather than merely reflecting it.

3. Expansion of Duty Beyond the Individual

If platforms can be held liable for contributing to mental health harm, analogous arguments may be advanced that cultural systems, institutional practices, and dominant norms also bear some responsibility for shaping risk.

As a result, Plaintiffs may increasingly incorporate cultural and systemic critiques, expert testimony on media ecology and sociocultural pressure, and arguments linking platform content to broader ideological frameworks as part of causation narratives.

Tension Between Clinical Rigor and Expanding Etiological Narratives

While these developments may broaden the scope of inquiry, they also introduce tension. From a clinical and evidentiary standpoint multifactorial models require specificity and measurable variables and overly diffuse causation theories risk diluting analytical precision.

From a legal standpoint courts require evidence that is not only plausible, but attributable and proximate. Expansive social frameworks (e.g., “White supremacy culture”) may be more difficult to operationalize in a manner that satisfies evidentiary standards. Accordingly, while social justice perspectives may gain rhetorical and academic traction, their translation into clinical standards or legal causation will likely depend on the development of measurable constructs, empirical validation, and clear linkage to individual harm.

Increased Eating Disorder Liability

For eating disorder related claims, liability may no longer depend on identifying specific harmful posts.  Instead, plaintiffs can target recommendation algorithms, engagement loops (likes, scroll, autoplay) and behavioral reinforcement systems. This aligns directly with how eating disorder pathology operates; repetition, reinforcement, and escalation, not isolated exposure.

Historically, eating disorder related litigation struggled with causation; eating disorders are multifactorial (genetics, trauma, culture) and Courts viewed platform influence as too attenuated.

The recent verdicts suggest juries are now willing to accept alternatives. The Los Angeles case framed harm through addiction mechanics; compulsive use, reinforcement loops and diminished control. This maps closely onto eating disorder pathology; compulsive restriction, bingeing, or purging, reinforcement through comparison and validation and escalating behavioral cycles.

Unlike traditional media, social media platforms learn user vulnerabilities and optimize content delivery accordingly. For eating disorder claims, this enables arguments that platforms did not merely expose users to harmful content. They systematically increased exposure based on detected susceptibility.

This is a qualitatively different form of causation, not passive distribution, but active behavioral shaping.

Among potential harm categories, EDs are uniquely positioned for litigation success due to a high predictability of harm. There is extensive internal and external research linking social comparison to body dissatisfaction to disordered eating. We now know that social media platforms can track repeated viewing of weight loss content, thinspiration and calorie restriction narratives. This creates a potential evidentiary record of foreseeable harm combined with continued amplification.

Courts are especially receptive to harms affecting minors and failure to implement protective measures. Eating disorder onset often occurs during adolescence, aligning directly with peak social media usage and peak psychological vulnerability.

Long-Term Structural Changes

As a result of these cases, we may see an emergence of “Digital Duty of Care” particularly for minors. Social media platforms may be held to standards similar to product safety law and pharmaceutical risk disclosure.  Courts may formalize liability tied to predictive amplification of harm. And we may see potential legislation impacting youth specific design standards, limits on engagement optimization and/or mandatory transparency for algorithmic systems.

We may also see evolving clinical implications for eating disorders. Eating disorders may increasingly be viewed not only as psychiatric conditions but environmentally induced or exacerbated disorders linked to platform design.

Clinicians should begin to document social media exposure patterns and incorporate platform use into diagnostic frameworks. This could strengthen litigation evidence and insurance coverage arguments.

In addition, eating disorders may be reframed as partially technology-mediated disorders. This parallels lung cancer (tobacco) and opioid addiction (pharmaceutical design and distribution).

The Meta and Google verdicts do not merely increase litigation risk, they signal a paradigm shift in how harm from digital systems is understood and adjudicated. For eating disorders, the implications are profound:

  • A viable legal theory now exists
  • Causation barriers are weakening
  • Platform design is becoming justiciable
  • Large-scale settlement frameworks are increasingly likely

Most importantly, these developments may redefine eating disorders not only as clinical phenomena, but as foreseeable outcomes of engineered environments optimized for engagement at the expense of psychological safety.

If this trajectory holds, the next phase of litigation will not ask whether platforms contributed to eating disorders, but to what extent, and at what cost.

The Best of Times … the Worst of Times: Real Life in the Age of Social Media

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities,

Dickens’ well-known quote reflects the contradictory nature of the era it describes, the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, where societal extremes of wisdom and foolishness, belief and doubt, and hope and despair coexisted. The phrase is often used today to describe any period of conflicting circumstances, where seemingly opposite conditions exist simultaneously. 

Dickens captured an era riven by contradiction—one that is strikingly familiar in our decaying, digital age. Today, we move through a world that offers extraordinary access, unprecedented connectivity, and boundless opportunities for expression. Yet those same spaces are shaped by curated identities, algorithm-fed anxieties, and an ever-growing sense of distance among people who are, paradoxically, more connected than ever.

The fears, insecurities and cowardice which define the essence of keyboard warriors have come to define their very lives. And pushes them even further from humanity.

It Was the Best of Times: The Goodness of Real Life

Real life … messy, unpredictable and intimate remains the realm where meaning truly accrues and matters.

When I am out in public, be it the local dog park, a mixed-use shopping retail development, restaurants, the courthouse, bars, going for walks, I interact with people from all walks of life. Men, women, numerous races and ages. Each time, there is laughter, discussions centered on our families, our pets, the holidays, our health, the beauty of the day. I have dear friends from both ends of the political spectrum. We socialize, party together, laugh together.

In real life, conversations are not filtered through screens or stripped of tone and nuance. A friend’s laughter, the warmth of a handshake, the look in someone’s eyes when they understand you … these moments carry a weight no number of “likes” can replicate. Human relationships deepen through vulnerability, shared experience, and presence. Real life offers the “age of wisdom,” where insight grows not from viral posts but from quiet reflection, trial and error, and authentic connection.

Real experiences ground us. They tether us to something permanent and tangible: the smell of freshly cut grass in the springtime, the scent of the Christmas tree, the chaos of family gatherings, the comfort of routines, the joy of unexpected kindness. These are the “seasons of light,” moments illuminated by genuine human engagement.

It Was the Worst of Times: The Digital Landscape of Angst and Despair

Yet we live simultaneously in a world where social media defines culture. Platforms promise connection but often deliver its hollow imitation.

To properly illustrate the decay of society, one need only understand that the financial goal of the five (5) wealthiest corporations in the United States is attained by enticing us to immerse ourselves completely in our personal devices, to remove ourselves from real life and to exist solely on social media. To isolate ourselves. To limit our face-to-face human interaction. That insures their financial success while insuring the destruction of our well-being.

Here, the “age of foolishness” reigns … where impulsive opinions eclipse thoughtful dialogue and where appearance overshadows substance. Belief contorts into echo chambers, while incredulity becomes a reflex to any idea that challenges our curated worldview. We scroll endlessly, absorbing news of tragedies, political battles, and social comparisons until the world feels saturated with crisis. Cowardice and fear are the watchwords. If you do not agree with someone’s viewpoints? You need only “block them” on social media. With a keystroke, you have eliminated intelligent discourse and the expanding of your mind.

We are inundated with political parties disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing. Promulgating the power of their own party over the needs of the Republic. Indeed, politics has become a new religion rather than an enlightened arena where we can engage in intelligent conversation with a shared goal, the well-being of our nation. Politics is now pop culture. Name calling. Inflammatory labeling. Each tribe remaining in the safety and comfort of their own echo chamber. Pundits opining that we are closer to a civil war now than at any time since the end of the Civil War.

There is the parade of angst, personal attacks, tribal entrenchment, absolutism, and fear … the very worst of our qualities.

This is the “season of darkness.” Online, despair grows quietly: the loneliness of constant comparison, the fear of missing out, the anxiety of measuring oneself against the polished illusions of others. Validation is quantified, self-worth becomes algorithmic, and interactions feel more transactional than relational.

However, when people experience “real life” and interact personally with their fellow humans, more often than not, it is our goodness which shines brightly. Not our disagreements. When pain, anxiety and fear are disclosed, it is in the context of a safe place to be shared and cared for by people who want only the best for you. It is tragic that we have unnecessarily permitted social media to diminish our human connection.

In this winter of digital despair, everything is visible, yet little feels real.

The Spring of Hope: Rekindling Humanity in a Connected Age

Despite its cold edges, social media also holds the “spring of hope.” It has connected the isolated, amplified marginalized voices, and spread information at breathtaking speed. But harnessing its good requires remembering that platforms are tools, not substitutes, for human connection.

We can reclaim the best of both worlds by grounding ourselves in real relationships while using digital spaces intentionally. Social media should supplement our lives, not consume them. It should extend community, not replace it.

Choose Light Over Darkness

Just as Dickens depicted an age torn between extremes, we too, navigate a world of contrasts. The best of times and the worst of times coexist in our hands … literally, in the glowing rectangles we carry everywhere.

The goodness of real life lies in its humanity. The manner in which our souls seek out to connect with others. The despair of social media lies in its impersonality. By choosing presence over performance, conversation over commentary, and authenticity over algorithms, we can keep the light from being swallowed by the dark.

In the end, it is up to us to determine which “season” defines our era.