For years, social media firms were virtually untouchable in the courts. They enjoyed broad immunity from litigation thanks to a controversial piece of US law known as Section 230, which stipulates that social platforms, as hosts of third-party content, are in most cases not liable for that content.

But in 2024, Carl received a note from the Social Media Victims Law Center, a firm, established in 2021 in Seattle, that represented thousands of families like the Burkes—families who had lost children to sextortion, fatal TikTok challenges, and fentanyl-laced drugs sold over Snapchat. SMVLC’s founder, an attorney named Matthew Bergman, and his team were mounting an all-out offensive against social media, not by attacking Section 230 but by sidestepping it. Instead of focusing on content, they were pursuing a novel legal theory: that the platforms themselves were negligently designed, stuffed full of features and algorithms that addict and harm teenage users. Carl understood that, if the courts validated this theory, it would represent a chink in social media’s armour—a way to hold Big Tech accountable for its role in what happened to Harry. So he wrote back. He wanted in.