By Will Guyatt, technology correspondent

The word seismic is frequently overused, but the landmark decision in this first social media jury trial will truly start the dominoes falling.

Listen to this article

Through their behaviour, the social networks have left a loaded, smoking gun for every parent, campaigner, legislator, politician and victim who long believed the social networks prioritised profits over people.

This new legal decision says Meta and Google’s bosses knew the dangers all along when intentionally making their platforms addictive by design.

There’s more than a whiff of the US tobacco trials around this case - and while they took almost forty years to move through the courts, they ultimately transformed smoking from something recommended by Doctors and Film Stars into something you now have to do outside, fully aware of the harms - after having paid out hundreds of billions of dollars to those suffering from smoking related illnesses.

Big Tech and Big Tobacco have something in common - they both buried information about their harms - and that’s a very damning verdict.

While Meta and Google get to split the several million dollar compensation bill 70/30 - there’s likely to be many billions of dollars of fines to be paid out as a result of this single case.

In California alone, there are already hundreds of cases neatly stacked up awaiting the decision of this first hearing - and after this result, that pile is going to get significantly larger.

And this isn’t just about the US - the “addictive by design” argument will now be used in courts around the world - and not only in cases with users, the European Union’s Digital Markets Act is investigating the idea that social networks are designed to keep users on them - and will likely now use this US victory to force changes in design to the platforms in order for them to keep operating in the region.

Behind this victory over Big Tech - there’s also a growing feeling of vindication among those who’ve long felt that social networks are all about profit and enrichment for the owners - not for those using them.

It’s likely the reputational harm will apply further pressure on the UK government to nail its flag to the mast and apply a social media ban for U16s, which so far has been on and off the table more times than my proposed lunch with Nick Ferrari.

There’s one rather large and still unspoken variable in this case - President Donald Trump. Admittedly, he’s got his fingers in a significant number of pies right now - but the pivot of American Tech Bros to President Trump was not purely for the allure of the MAGA movement.

Mark Zuckerberg went from calling Trump a danger and banning him from his platform in 2021 to suggesting that the Trump Administration V2 was welcomed to stop foreign states getting involved in the business of US tech companies - so what happens when the first court case finding Big Tech guilty occurs on home turf? There’s an element of nine-dimensional chess I simply wouldn’t try to predict.

Let’s hope this isn’t the beginning of a 40+ year legal battle to finally get the answers many have been desperately seeking.

Will Guyatt is LBC's resident tech expert.

LBC Opinion provides a platform for diverse opinions on current affairs and matters of public interest.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official LBC position.

To contact us email opinion@lbc.co.uk

© LBC