Your Undivided Attention Why the Meta Verdicts Are a Big Deal (And What It Was Like to Testify)
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Mar 26, 2026 Aza Raskin, product designer and technologist who invented infinite scroll and co-founded the Center for Humane Technology, tells what it was like to testify about addictive design. He discusses the New Mexico trial tactics, how undercover accounts exposed harms, why fines alone fall short, and how injunctive relief and specific design changes could force tech to stop exploiting users.
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Injunctive Relief Matters More Than Monetary Fines
- Courts can force product changes that matter more than fines.
- New Mexico verdict yields $375M but injunctive relief could require design changes that reduce engagement and bite into Meta's business model.
Latency As A Legal Remedy To Reduce Engagement
- Courts can impose fine-grained technical remedies like adding latency to reduce engagement.
- A 100–200ms page-load delay is sub-perceptual but measurably cuts retention, giving regulators a dial to punish harmful design choices.
Internal Docs Show Meta Knew And Prioritized Engagement
- Discovery exposed internal Meta acknowledgments that child safety was neglected.
- Memos showed leaders admitting scale of grooming, requests for more staff denied, and statements like 'child safety is an explicit non-goal this half of the year.'