00:00These companies have been gaslighting us for years.
00:02This is all about money.
00:04The purpose of all commercial ventures is to create a demand.
00:09Our children are the casualties.
00:10We need to take back the power from these companies.
00:14They created a dangerous situation and then manipulated these kids.
00:18They know the levels of addiction, sexual abuse.
00:22They know the levels of suicide.
00:24They're not showing our kids what they want to see.
00:27They're showing you what they can't look away from.
00:30Matthew O'Neill co-directed that film based on reporting by our colleague, Olivia Carville.
00:33He joins us now.
00:34Matt, great to have you here with us.
00:36So glad to be here.
00:37Help us understand the import of this, the magnitude of it.
00:39So this was less about the content from these sites and more about the design, the addictive nature of the
00:43design.
00:44How do you think about this judgment in the sweep of what you've been reporting on over these last many
00:48years?
00:48Well, what you hear in that clip right there, both Laura Marquez Garrett and Matt Bergman,
00:53two of the lawyers from the Social Media Victims Law Center, they're talking about product design.
00:59And that's the key element, not only in this case in California,
01:02but in the other case that made headlines this week in New Mexico, where the product design is seen as
01:09the central flaw.
01:10Because previously they tried to argue liability for individual posts,
01:14and that hadn't made way in the courts because of how that law was structured.
01:17This is a new approach, right?
01:18This is a novel legal approach that you see.
01:20It's reflected in Can't Look Away.
01:22It's actually in a trial that we follow where they're going against Snapchat that you actually see in the film.
01:28But it's the same lawyers and some of the same families that Perry Peltz, the other director of the film,
01:33and I and Olivia followed for years for Can't Look Away.
01:36Are they using, I mean, how strong is the argument that these media companies are using the same kind of
01:43tactics
01:44that we saw with companies like tobacco and alcohol to try to market it to kids and get them hooked
01:49early?
01:49Well, you're seeing headlines right now that this is social media's big tobacco moment.
01:54And it is a public health crisis.
01:57This is something that is happening to many, many, many children.
02:00When you think about tobacco, I think at its height, about 34% of teenagers were using tobacco.
02:07It's essentially all teenagers are using social media.
02:10And it's a much bigger public health crisis because of the scale of their use.
02:15Thinking about tobacco, for instance, that had this kind of catalytic quality where after that judgment,
02:20I think there was a wider awareness of the public health impacts of it.
02:22But how do you think about that, the impact, again, that this judgment in L.A.,
02:26the judgment in New Mexico as well, could have on kind of advancing the conversation
02:30or a wider understanding of what's happening here?
02:32Well, you see the headlines.
02:34I mean, this was on every home page, on every front page.
02:39This case, Mark Zuckerberg testifying.
02:41It was a really big deal.
02:43So I think that the social impact of this, the way people are talking about these cases,
02:49the awareness that good journalism, like what you see in Can't Look Away,
02:53does for the impact and the harms that social media has on children is really changing the conversation.
03:00So you have this mixture of different forces.
03:03There's been legislative efforts.
03:05These whistleblowers, Arturo Bejar, who's been speaking out a great deal, Francis Haugen,
03:09and they've been in front of Congress.
03:12But now this is a jury listening to what these whistleblowers are saying
03:17and saying that it meets the legal threshold to hold these companies liable.
03:22And the dollar amount was not that much.
03:24It was, what, $6 million.
03:26I mean, for these companies, it's a lot for me.
03:27It's a lot for all of us.
03:28But for them, it's not that much.
03:30But is it more about the precedent that it sets,
03:32that this is a successful argument that others can now pick up,
03:36and maybe that foments things like legislative change and things like that?
03:39So this is the first case through the door.
03:42It's what's known as a bellwether case.
03:44And the other companies, TikTok and Snapchat,
03:47settled with this plaintiff in advance of going to trial,
03:50presumably because they did not want to go to trial.
03:53Obviously, Meta and YouTube thought they would be better off going to trial.
03:56That strategy did not play out for them.
03:59There are literally thousands of more people lined up behind this case.
04:05Some of the families you see in Can't Look Away are also sort of in line
04:10to hold these companies accountable.
04:12So, yes, $3 million, when you think about Meta's market capitalization,
04:17doesn't sound like that much money.
04:19But the number of people that are coming in the doors after this case,
04:23and critically, the pressure it puts on the company to change,
04:27which is what these parents care about the most.
04:30You saw scenes, Laura Marquez Garrett,
04:33one of the lawyers who's in that clip that you shared.
04:35She was on the steps of the courthouse with other families
04:39that have cases against Meta and TikTok and Snapchat and others,
04:42all hanging on every moment of this jury's verdict.
04:46And you see photos of them embracing each other afterwards,
04:49because what they're after, what the families are largely after,
04:53is change, not just a dollar amount.
04:56Talk a bit more about that.
04:58And I don't want to talk about these families who have been affected as a monolith,
05:00but you've spent time with a number of them.
05:02We know in broad strokes who the plaintiff was in the case in California.
05:06When you say they want change, what does that mean in real terms?
05:09Is it legislative change to Section 230, which we've heard a lot about?
05:14Is it radical changes to the way that these social media sites have their programming,
05:19the way that these apps are?
05:19Their algorithms are built.
05:21What are they looking for, if you can characterize it?
05:23To categorize it broadly, I think they want to change the nature of the business.
05:28Right now, these businesses often put profit ahead of people and really ahead of children's lives.
05:34And that's the fundamental switch, is they want safeguards,
05:37whether the safeguards come internally from the companies,
05:39whether they come externally from legislation.
05:42The parents in these cases have taken their grief,
05:46taken this unimaginable horror that they've suffered through,
05:49and they continue to tell their story and re-traumatize themselves
05:52and bring their story out in public because they believe that change can happen.
05:56And how exactly that change happens, we don't know in this country.
06:01Imagine Congress keeping up with the change in technology.
06:04It's really hard.
06:05But our civil justice system in this case has.
06:08Well, look, you've got this ban in Australia that they've just instituted for people under 16.
06:12The UK tried to do something similar.
06:14They didn't quite get it, so they're doing like a pilot program where they're testing a ban.
06:18If you are a parent of a teenager, if you are a young person,
06:22frankly, if you're an adult, I get depressed after spending too much time on social media.
06:26What can you do now without this legislation, without help from these companies?
06:29If you're a parent or a person looking to improve your relationship with social media,
06:33have you found anything to be effective, any tips or things to help folks out?
06:36I'll quote one of the parents who are featured in the film, Amy Neville,
06:39whose son died of fentanyl poisoning that was delivered to him via a Snapchat connection.
06:45And Amy's biggest point for parents is talk, talk, talk, talk.
06:51That's what you can do now.
06:52Talk with your kids about what they're watching.
06:55Talk with your kids about what they're using.
06:57The social media applications that are out today that are popular today
07:01may very well change in the next year to 18 months.
07:04And keeping abreast of that as parents is almost impossible.
07:08It's parents against these multibillion-dollar corporations.
07:12You can watch Can't Look Away, The Case Against Social Media, right now on Bloomberg.com.
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