00:00Eric as I mentioned it's meta it's Google. It's also snap and tick tock facing legal focus throughout the year. Correct. Yeah. There's a trial taking place right now in Los Angeles putting all four of them on trial. There's also a federal case that's putting them on trial in June and there are lawsuits against all of them throughout the country in parallel with that. The argument at its core from some of these so-called victims
00:30are that these tools and these platforms were designed to hook teens young brains in particular and keep them coming back for more. Eric is that the understanding you have what legal credence what fight do they have to fight here. So the basic argument for the plaintiffs is as you described that the sites were designed to intentionally addict users and that the services are therefore liable for the harms that resulted from that addiction. There's a lot of questions about that.
00:58For example we have to ask what does it even mean to be quote addicted to a social media service. There aren't medical or psychological definitions of that. We also have to talk about whether or not the services caused the harms that the victims have suffered. There are many causes of harms in people's lives and so isolating that causation is going to be tricky for the plaintiffs as well.
01:19Let's get Meta's response to these lawsuits and questions right. The company says that they don't reflect reality. The evidence will show a company deeply and responsibly confronting tough questions concerning research listening to parents academics and safety experts etc.
01:37that that that's the company's reaction. Actually what's happening in response to the wider issue is you see state by state different laws being enacted that are consistent with the complaints of the plaintiffs that that's my read of it. Professor Goldman is that a sort of useful strategy towards a solution here.
01:59Professor Goldman I think you need to be careful about using the term solution because in order for us to talk about that we have to be very precise about exactly what problem we're trying to fix. There are a lot of problems in our society. A lot of problems plaguing kids. And there are also problems of over responding to the content online that looks a lot like censorship.
02:18And so when we talk about solutions we can't do that without talking about the problems. Having said that I think that we're going to see a battle of experts in these trials where both sides are going to bring in the best and brightest minds to tell their case to the jury. We're going to hear from average Americans essentially plucked off the streets who are going to weigh that evidence and try and tell us whether or not they think there's a problem here that needs to be addressed.
02:43Professor, in the course of proceedings throughout the trials, those that are kind of trying to come to a decision in them, those presiding over the case, to what degree do they have expertise in the technicalities behind this?
03:02So ideally the jury doesn't have any direct expertise they're bringing in. The idea is that that's not what they're being asked to do.
03:11They're going to be presented with evidence from experts that have been chosen by the parties and they're supposed to sift through that evidence, discuss it, evaluate it, and try to say which they find more convincing.
03:23So in that sense I think it's even better for us that it's not a panel of experts trying to side.
03:28It's really a bunch of what we hope are well-meaning Americans who are there to just tell us I'm not going to respond to the hype.
03:36I'm not going to listen to the critics in the media or the plaintiffs, lawyers, and the politicians per se.
03:41I'm going to listen to the evidence.
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