00:00Could you just help us understand what is a question here, please?
00:05The primary question that they're trying to address here is, are the harms that are being experienced by these plaintiffs?
00:13And those are some really extensive and really serious ones, including, in some cases, suicide, but depression, body anxiety, body
00:21dysmorphia.
00:22Are these things attributable to the design of certain platforms, in particular things like Instagram and Facebook?
00:28And so really the question is, who is causing this harm?
00:32What is responsible?
00:33Is it the content that these kids are seeking out?
00:37Or is it the way that these platforms have designed their tools and services to entice really vulnerable users to
00:43stay on the platform for longer and longer periods of time?
00:47It was Mr. Zuckerberg who was giving testimony.
00:50And, you know, the, I suppose, top line of that testimony was that it is difficult for Meta, in particular
00:59through the Instagram app, to enforce what are existing rules.
01:03You know, how do you feel that that argument will carry from him?
01:10It's not really clear how well that's going to serve, I think, the defense, because really what Zuckerberg seemed to
01:17be reiterating was, well, we have all of these really dangerous tools that we know can cause harm.
01:22And, you know, it's just really hard for us to keep them out of the hands of certain individuals.
01:26But that's just sort of accepting the premise that these kinds of products and services should exist at all and
01:32that it's just an intractable problem about who's going to access them.
01:36When the question really should be, you know, why are you creating these types of features?
01:40What's the actual use of something like a beauty filter that you know is going to be really attractive to
01:45nine and ten-year-old girls?
01:46So I think that he's very much trying to say, well, if you assume a world where all of these
01:51things have to exist, then it's really hard for us to control access.
01:54That's true enough.
01:55But why do these things actually have to exist?
01:58We're showing a February 11th statement from Meta specifically tied to this trial.
02:04And the back half of it says the evidence will show she, i.e. the plaintiff, faced many significant difficult
02:10challenges well before she ever used social media.
02:13I'm just putting that that is Meta's statement.
02:17Prior to that in November, you know, they had said they strongly disagree with these allegations and confident the evidence
02:23will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people.
02:26I'm going to ask the same question again in a slightly different way.
02:29You have the CEO of the company defending what are existing policies and practices, but explaining how difficult it is
02:37to enforce them.
02:38Would you just help us understand, you know, what pressure will be put on him as the CEO of that
02:45company or what changes or what outcome the court could affect how that company does business?
02:53Yes.
02:54So a lot of things could happen at this point because this isn't just about whether liability is found in
02:59these particular cases.
03:00This is also the first moment that we're really seeing the general public get a look at what did Mark
03:06Zuckerberg know and when did he know it?
03:08And so even if in individual cases it's an uphill battle to show absolute causation for these injuries, now we've
03:15got information in the hands of the public, in the hands of regulators, in the hands of policymakers.
03:20And you've already seen that this kind of attention is causing these companies to change some of their practices.
03:25So they've been giving the kind of PR propaganda about how, well, we're doing our best, but it's really challenging.
03:31But every time there's serious consequences that might loom over these platforms, they do start making some changes, although usually
03:39they're a little too little too late.
03:42We put in writing that this trial will run through the end of March.
03:45And again, it's in parallel with a number of other legal proceedings that involve other parties.
03:50How much does one trial influence all the others that may happen after very quickly?
03:56Quite a bit.
03:57This is a bellwether trial, and the entire reason why it's been chosen is because it's supposed to give both
04:02parties a sense of how this is going to play out.
04:05And so if it looks as though things are going badly for the defense, that could really have an effect
04:09on settlements and possibly agreements going forward to have safer products and platforms.
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