How Instagram addictiveness lawsuit could reshape social media – platform design meets product liability

Is the social media platform she's using, rather than the content she's viewing, a threat to her well-being? Fiordaliso/Moment via Getty Images

A Los Angeles courtroom is hosting what may become the most consequential legal challenge Big Tech has ever faced.

This is an inflection point in the global debate over Big Tech liability: For the first time, an American jury is being asked to decide whether platform design itself can give rise to product liability – not because of what users post on them, but because of how they were built.