‘Dangerous precedent’: Gee cautions shift from personal to corporate blame after Meta lawsuit

A California jury has found Meta and YouTube liable for creating products that have led to harmful and addictive behavior by young users on their platforms.

Gee Scott, co-host of “The Gee and Ursula Show” on KIRO Newsradio, warned that the ruling sets a dangerous precedent that avoids accountability from parents and the kids themselves, and shifts that blame onto tech.

“This ruling right here. I can’t stand it. I don’t like it. I think it’s a dangerous precedent; this is what you call a shift in accountability,” Gee said. “Instead of blaming the responsible parties themselves, we’re blaming the system. Don’t get me wrong, when it comes to these tech companies, I know they aren’t innocent. I’ll be the first to say, yeah, some sketchy stuff. But there’s been sketchy stuff with these companies in the very beginning, and we allowed these companies to go scot-free for so long.

“They built these algorithms to keep us hooked, to keep us scrolling,” he continued. “But at what point do we as people or as parents stop and say we have a choice now? Specifically on this thing, they didn’t get them for the content. They got them for how it is structured, and the patterns on there. They’re blaming the design for our or the kids’ behavior, but where’s the accountability?”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to Gee and Ursula on “The Gee and Ursula Show” weekday mornings from 9 am to 12 pm on KIRO Newsradio.