Technology Regulation

This week’s coverage centered on two legal developments: a New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay a $567 million abatement (on top of a prior $375 million penalty) and imposed specific product limits for minors on Facebook and Instagram — from a 90‑hour/month cap to hiding likes and restricting adult interactions — while saying COPPA limits blunt age‑verification orders; and the Ninth Circuit cleared thousands of “social‑media addiction” suits to proceed, rejecting a broad Section 230 immunity defense after plaintiffs argued platform design fosters addictive use and mental‑health harms (noting a related March verdict that found platforms liable and awarded $6 million to a lead plaintiff).

Mainstream reports emphasized the rulings, alleged mental‑health harms and financial stakes but largely omitted practical and contextual questions readers need: how state‑level product mandates would be enforced across platforms and jurisdictions, technical feasibility and error rates of AI age‑assurance, privacy tradeoffs of stronger age checks, timelines and likely outcomes of appeals, and how these remedies compare to other regulatory regimes (e.g., EU rules). Independent commentary (e.g., Slowboring) framed the issue as structural — linking platform design to civic decline and arguing litigation is a tool to force design change — while contrarian views warned about chilling speech and eroding valuable online communities. Missing factual context that would clarify the debate includes robust longitudinal studies tying specific design features to harms, baseline youth screen‑time and mental‑health trend data, empirical tests of time caps or like‑hiding effectiveness, and a clearer roadmap of precedent and enforcement costs.