Board of Advisors Spotlight: Matthew Bergman, JD

After learning more about the mental health crisis impacting American youth, Mr. Bergman saw a familiar–and concerning–connection between social media companies and the asbestos industry: producing and selling products that knowingly cause harm. With this in mind, Mr. Bergman decided to “apply those lessons toward holding social media companies accountable for the havoc that their platforms are wreaking on our young people.” In 2021, he established the Social Media Victims Law Center.

Mr. Bergman brings both his experience representing families affected by the harms caused by the design and profit models of social media platforms, and his desire to “give back” by helping causes he’s passionate about to the Institute’s Board of Advisors. “Children and Screens has been one of the go-to sources for information, the gold standard from which understanding the confluence of science and public policy come together. Its credibility is very high, its intellectual rigor is clear, and so I’ve been an admirer and a follower of Children and Screens,” said Mr. Bergman. As a member of the Board of Advisors, he hopes to “provide a legal perspective on some of the challenges and projects that the organization is undertaking.”

Mr. Bergman’s passion for and achievements toward advancing justice through his legal work was recognized in 2022 by the American Jewish Committee, honoring him with the Learned Hand award. Beyond his professional work, Mr. Bergman serves on a number of other non-profit and academic boards including the Board of Directors for the Mississippi Center for Justice, the Board of Visitors at Lewis and Clark Law School, the Board of Trustees of Lewis & Clark College, and previously on the Board of Trustees for Reed College, the Board of Directors of the Tacoma Art Museum and the Board of the Seattle Repertory Theater. Asked about his interest in serving on the boards of his alma mater(s), Mr. Bergman said that he feels “grateful and indebted” to both his undergraduate and law school, and sees his participation as an opportunity to “give back economically and [with his] expertise.”

In Mr. Bergman’s view, the last two and a half years have seen signs of progress toward holding social media companies accountable. The SMVLC itself filed the first cases in the United States asserting product liability in social media, and they continue to pursue improvements in the social media landscape by keeping ongoing trials moving forward and supporting their defendants.

Additionally, Mr. Bergman is encouraged by the increase in awareness, both in Congress and among the public, about the designs of these platforms and their potential danger posed to young people. He has also seen changes in platforms’ operations, although he notes that “They’re not moving fast enough or far enough.The wind is at our back, but we have stormy seas ahead.”

One critical platform-level change to address, according to Berman, is the profit structure of social media platforms, which is causing harm to children and adolescents’ well-being. This change is also the driving force behind the SMVLC’s ongoing work. Bergman notes that the current platform profit structure is based on usage time, rather than the needs of their users. Thus platforms make money not on “whether it meets [kids’] needs or desires or what they’re interested in looking at” but rather on “the quantity of how long a kid’s eyes stay on the screen.” Through litigation, Mr. Bergman and the Center aim to make it more expensive for social media platforms to knowingly market products dangerous to youth.

Other helpful changes might include adding features to manage and limit screen time, providing basic warnings for parents about the risks of social media platforms, and more robust implementation of age-identity verification to further safeguard children from communication with strangers, including potential predators and other bad actors.

While there is still work to be done to hold social media companies accountable and to address the ongoing mental health crisis faced by today’s youth, Mr. Bergman expressed his hope that progress is moving forward toward helping children and adolescents exposed to these platforms, saying “every life saved is a miracle.”