In personal affairs, admitting fallibility can be a contentious endeavor. Some are too stubborn to simply recognize their shortcomings, others are perhaps so self-obsessed that even the mere suggestion of wrongdoing is inconceivable.Â
However, arguably the most captivating instances of responsibility avoidance play out on a larger scale within courtrooms. It’s in these rooms that responsibility for wrongdoing must be assigned, and in what could be a landmark case, both Meta and Alphabet (the parent company of Google and Youtube), have been found responsible for product negligence. The trial relates to claims raised by a 20-year old female plaintiff who experienced anxiety and depression in adulthood as a result of compulsive social media usage as a child. Critically, this case questions the deliberate and detrimental design of features such as infinite scroll and algorithmic recommendations, as opposed to specific content shared on these platforms.Â
Crucially, this meant that these companies had to accept culpability, acknowledging the deliberate design of their platforms to harness users’ attention. While amusing to hear Mark Zuckerberg attempting to evade responsibility for the addictive design of Meta’s platforms, such as Instagram, the opposition was clearly elucidated by the presentation of internal emails which detailed his discussion of strategies aimed at increasing time spent on the app.
The negative impacts of social media are all too prevalent, from the shortening of attention spans, the numbness of doomscrolling or the creation and amplification of insecurities, social media can end up consuming you. It requires a degree of self-restraint to not become beholden to the algorithm, especially when that algorithm is intentionally engineered to extract the utmost attention from you. Shifting responsibility to individual choices is an ever present counter-argument that ultimately falters in comparison to the degree of professional knowledge and resources that underlie the engineering of how we engage with content.Â
Although the defendants intend to appeal, this case can hopefully set a precedent for the recognition and assumption of responsibility by large corporations for their adverse impact on users’ health. The concerns raised by this case will prove all the more paramount as the widespread adoption of AI inevitability results in harrowing cases where the line of responsibility is diffused between user and chatbot.
While interpersonal cases of responsibility avoidance commonly distill down to personality clashes and the at times hazy difference between intention and outcome, corporate responsibility is all too often eschewed or diffused.Â