RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) -- Experts from Virginia Tech University discussed the impacts of ongoing lawsuits aiming to hold major social media companies accountable for making their products addictive to children. On Friday, Dec. 13, Virginia Tech shared a release about social media experts discussing o ngoing lawsuits in California that aim to hold social media companies, such as Meta and YouTube, responsible for allegedly making their products more addictive for children intentionally. Virginia Tech social media expert Megan Duncan and political communications expert Cayce Myers discussed the possible impacts of these lawsuits and the wider implications for consumers and public policy. Duncan is an associate professor in the School of Communication with research focusing on how partisans judge the credibility of and engage with the news. She's interested in learning about audience perceptions of the news to help them form opinions to strengthen democracy. “This complex case is about whether company representatives created design features and functions that harmed those teens; and if the company did, to what extent did it create those features and functions with the knowledge that they would cause harm,” Duncan said. She also said there is a "black box" that determines what content users are given on social media. However, data on social media algorithms that decide design decisions is kept a secret from the companies. These lawsuits in California reflect growing public and governmental scrutiny of how social media affects teenagers, Duncan said. There is a new Virginia law requiring social media companies to limit screen time for teenagers to only an hour a day. “Right now, social media companies cannot be held liable for the content of what the teens engaged with on social media created by third parties because of section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a decades-old law enacted before modern social media existed,” Duncan said. Myers is the director of graduate studies at the School of Communication in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. He specializes in media history, political communication and laws affecting public relations practice. He said that these lawsuits have shifted the legal and social expectations for social media and raised broader questions about accountability, immunity and personal choice. “In the past, social media has largely been immunized by federal protections such as the Communications Decency Act section 230. However, these cases present a unique argument around algorithmic design and user experience and the negative net effects of social media as deliberately designed,” he said. Myers added that issues are raised beyond social media to other user experiences, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI). He said tech companies have to consider the mental health impacts on the design interfaces, algorithms and content management they use. He goes on to say there is an increased global social discussion about the negative impacts of social media on children. Australia even banned social media for users who are under the age of 16. “The larger discussion within this lawsuit is about who is responsible for the net effects of use.  Social media companies are arguing that the user is ultimately responsible for their interactions within social media, while plaintiffs argue that the underlying design creates addiction," Myers said. "The question is likely not going to be definitively resolved within a single lawsuit and may end up taking years to find an answer because of the appeals," he added. "Meanwhile, the impact of these lawsuits could be as large as the litigation in the 1990s with big tobacco as the sheer number of plaintiffs could proliferate depending upon the outcome of this case.” For more information, visit Virginia Tech University's website here. ...read more read less