Yes, this week YouTube and Meta were found negligent in a landmark case about social media addiction.

But "it's still far from certain what this defeat will change," argues The Verge's senior tech and policy editor, "and what the collateral damage could be."

If these decisions survive appeal — which isn't certain — the direct outcome would be multimillion-dollar penalties. Depending on the outcome of several more "bellwether" cases in Los Angeles, a much larger group settlement could be reached down the road... For many activists, the overall goal is to make clear that lawsuits will keep piling up if companies don't change their business practices...

The best-case outcome of all this has been laid out by people like Julie Angwin, who wrote in The New York Times that companies should be pushed to change "toxic" features like infinite scrolling, beauty filters that encourage body dysmorphia, and algorithms that prioritize "shocking and crude" content. The worst-case scenario falls along the lines of a piece from Mike Masnick at Techdirt, who argued the rulings spell disaster for smaller social networks that could be sued for letting users post and see First Amendment-protected speech under a vague standard of harm. He noted that the New Mexico case hinged partly on arguing that Meta had harmed kids by providing end-to-end encryption in private messaging, creating an incentive to discontinue a feature that protects users' privacy — and indeed, Meta discontinued end-to-end encryption on Instagram earlier this month.

Blake Reid, a professor at Colorado Law, is more circumspect. "It's hard right now to forecast what's going to happen," Reid told The Verge in an interview. On Bluesky, he noted that companies will likely look for "cold, calculated" ways to avoid legal liability with the minimum possible disruption, not fundamentally rethink their business models. "There are obviously harms here and it's pretty important that the tort system clocked those harms" in the recent cases, he told The Verge. "It's just that what comes in the wake of them is less clear to me".
The article also includes this prediction from legal blogger/Section 230 export Eric Goldman. "There will be even stronger pushes to restrict or ban children from social media." Goldman argues "This hurts many subpopulations of minors, ranging from LGBTQ teens who will be isolated from communities that can help them navigate their identities to minors on the autism spectrum who can express themselves better online than they can in face-to-face conversations."

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The Wall Street Journal reports that Rivian "just won a yearslong battle with car dealers in Washington state that threatens the model of how cars are sold."

After fighting to sell its vehicles directly to buyers, Rivian threatened to take its case to voters with a ballot measure to permit direct sales. The dealers blinked. The state's dealer lobby not only dropped its opposition to a sales loophole for Rivian and rival EV-maker Lucid, but also encouraged lawmakers to approve one. The measure became law this month...

New auto entrants like Rivian, and Tesla before it, have spent years contending with long-established U.S. state laws that require new cars to be sold through independent franchised dealers. The auto startups — typically makers of EVs — argue that they can offer a better experience by selling directly to consumers, much as Apple sells iPhones through its own stores and online. Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe has said the company is committed to direct-only sales because it's more profitable and gives the company control over how its vehicles are sold, marketed and maintained. The Washington compromise riled traditional automakers, including General Motors, Ford and Toyota, which lobbied against it, arguing it unfairly advantages startups. A trade group representing the automakers called it discriminatory and argued the exception could one day open the door to Chinese EV makers...

German automaker Volkswagen is currently facing several lawsuits from dealers over its plan to sell new Scout vehicles directly to consumers. Dealers say independent franchises are vital to the car-buying process, creating competition between dealerships that keeps prices affordable for consumers, while providing valuable services such as repairs, warranty work and financing... Yet for Washington's dealers, the prospect of putting franchise laws up for a popular vote laid bare a tough reality: given the choice, many car buyers want the freedom to avoid dealerships. Rivian's polling, which the company shared with lawmakers, showed nearly 70% of respondents favored allowing direct sales when asked whether they would support manufacturers selling cars directly to consumers...
The fight comes at a critical time for Rivian, which is launching a new, more affordable SUV in a bid to make consistent profits amid a downturn in U.S. EV sales... Rivian is able to directly sell cars in roughly half of U.S. states, but a number of them limit how many locations the company can operate. They can't disclose the price, though. For that, customers must go online.
The article notes that "Following the win, Rivian executives are eyeing other states that, like Washington, ban direct sales but also allow ballot initiatives: Arkansas, Ohio, Oklahoma, Montana, Nebraska and South Dakota..." It adds that lawmakers (from both parties) in the state of Washington had said "they have long felt pulled between giving consumers more car-buying freedom and protecting dealers, essentially small-business owners who are vital to local economies — and politically powerful."
But an executive at the Washington State Auto Dealers Association said dealers supported this new law partly because it protects them by barring future automakers from selling directly in the state, and by requiring Rivian and Lucid to adhere to the same regulations that govern how dealers operate.

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