However, I think the court is attempting to draw a line between expressive editorial acts and non-expressive, instrumental harms. This distinction can be seen through an analogy:

Imagine a physical newspaper that included only third-party content but also chose to add an addictive substance to its physical pages. When a reader touches and turns the pages, it triggers a compulsive, dopamine-addiction response. In this scenario, should the act of adding the addictive substance—which has nothing to do with the expressive value of the content—be considered an act of a "publisher" that should be shielded by a law like Section 230?

My intuition is no and I believe this is what the court is trying to get at. The core of the complaint against Meta is that the design of the service (e.g., infinite scroll, autoplay) is engineered to be addictive, irrespective of the content itself. This design is an instrumental act of manipulation, separate from the act of "speech/speaking" that Section 230 was designed to protect as harm here is not derived from the substance of the third-party content item, but from the mechanism used to deliver it, making it a harm that is not truly related to – or caused by – the content that was published.

I’m interested to hear your thoughts and whether you think we should prefer protecting this type of deliberate act because of the potential impact on third party speech/content over incentivizing platforms to take responsibility their own goals to maximize time and attention spent on their platform.