.jpg)
1 hour ago
2
Article content
“We’ve now seen how powerful that evidence is and how credible to juries it is,” she said.
Article content
Meta and Google said Wednesday they will appeal the verdict in Los Angeles. “Teen mental health is profoundly complex and cannot be linked to a single app,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement. “We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously as every case is different, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online.”
Article content
Possible Product Changes
Article content
The school districts suing the social media companies are also seeking changes to the way the platforms work. That could pose a threat to the advertising businesses that depend on users’ attention to generate revenue.
Article content
Hazam and her legal team are targeting features they believe lead to addiction, such as push notifications, and are urging better age verification tools and parental controls to protect young people.
Article content
Any changes that decrease the time people spend scrolling, sharing and interacting on these networks could hurt the companies’ profits.
Article content
“This could resort to them changing how their apps function, how their platforms function,” said Minda Smiley, a senior social media analyst at Emarketer. Any substantial changes to the product “could alter — and likely would alter — how advertisers want to show up there.”
Article content
Article content
Even if a verdict doesn’t force the companies to fundamentally change the way Meta’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube work, new laws might. Some child safety advocates see congressional action as the surest way to ensure design or product changes happen. While U.S. lawmakers are often hotly divided, children’s online safety is one of the few areas where they’ve been able to agree.
Article content
“Congress always acts slowly until they act extremely quickly,” said Sacha Haworth, executive director at the industry watchdog Tech Oversight Project. Oftentimes “there needs to be a galvanizing moment for Congress to act — and this is that moment.”
Article content
United States Senators Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee, and Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, have been leading proponents of children’s safety issues for years. They seized on the verdict Wednesday, hoping to build momentum for the Kids Online Safety Act, a bill they first introduced in February 2022 that has not yet become law.
Article content
“I would urge any member of Congress that continues to do Mark Zuckerberg’s bidding to look at this verdict and their conscience,” Blumenthal said, referring to Meta’s chief executive.
Article content
Article content
Settlement Options
Article content
This week’s loss in the trial in Los Angeles – coupled with the looming, similar lawsuits – has raised the idea of a potential mass settlement. TikTok and Snap, which were named as defendants in the California lawsuit, settled with the plaintiff before the trial started, but remain defendants in the other cases. An early loss could motivate the companies to consider a blanket settlement to avoid a drawn out and expensive legal fight.
Article content
That might not happen right away, though, said Matthew Schettenhelm, a litigation and government analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. Wednesday’s US$6 million verdict was small for a group of companies collectively worth several trillion dollars, and the social platforms may believe they just faced their toughest opponent. Since this was the first case the plaintiffs brought forward out of thousands of potential options, Schettenhelm said it’s likely stronger than the other cases waiting in the wings.
Article content
“I wouldn’t view it as the norm of all those thousands of cases, it’s probably an exceptionally strong case,” he said.
English (US)