Peter Chapman is Associate Director with the Knight-Georgetown Institute (KGI) at Georgetown University. He’s one of the most interesting thinkers on the intersection between tech policy, design, and the law. In this week’s episode, we discuss:
Courts may be the new front in tech regulation. Recent cases against Meta and other platforms are testing whether addictive and unsafe design features—not just user-generated content—can create legal liability.
While the media have focused on financial penalties, court-imposed design changes could be more consequential. Courts could require changes to features such as autoplay, default notifications, age verification, and features that connect minors with unknown adults.
Many safety tools, including parental controls, appear designed to reassure regulators rather than meaningfully change behavior. Internal company documents suggest that some platforms have measured safety interventions partly by ensuring they do not substantially reduce time spent online.
Litigation and legislation should be complementary, not competing strategies. Democratic institutions should establish broad rules, but lawsuits can expose internal evidence, compensate people who were harmed, and correct risks that regulators failed to anticipate.
The same design framework applies beyond social media. Sports betting, prediction markets, gaming, and other digital products increasingly use similar mechanics to extend use and spending, creating an opportunity for common standards around friction, transparency, limits, and user control.
The ultimate goal is to restore human agency. Early online communities often helped people collaborate, learn, and build relationships. Today’s platforms too often make users feel that they are fighting an algorithm designed to override their intentions. Better policy should help technology work for people again.
For more from Pete:
TIME: “Why Fines Alone Won’t Make Social Media Safer for Kids”
Tech Policy Press: “What US Lawsuits Reveal About Platform Design That DSA Reports Don’t”
KGI: “Designing Technology Remedies: Lessons for Social Media and Generative AI Chatbot Litigation”
KGI: “Measuring Risk: What EU Risk Assessments and US Litigation Reveal About Meta and TikTok”
