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Speaker 1: You with Cape Salt as John Nathan fore Afternoon Drive

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Speaker 1: and Drive.

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Speaker 2: Two potentially very very significant court cases in the United

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Speaker 2: States of America. The first, earlier this month, was in

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Speaker 2: New Mexico, where a jury found Meta, which, as I'm

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Speaker 2: sure many of you know, owns Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp,

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Speaker 2: found Meta liable for enabling child sexual exploitation and endangering

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Speaker 2: miners on its platform, and ordered Meta to pay three

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Speaker 2: hundred and seventy five million dollars in civil penalties for

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Speaker 2: violating the State of New Mexico's Unfair Practices Act. The

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Speaker 2: jury found that Meta knowingly prioritized profits over child's safety,

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Speaker 2: ignored internal warnings, and misled the public about the safety

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Speaker 2: of its apps. And then, more recently, in the last

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Speaker 2: forty eight hours, a jury in Los Angeles delivered a

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Speaker 2: verdict against Instagram and YouTube, ruling that these apps are

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Speaker 2: addictive and deliberately engineered to be addictive, and that its

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Speaker 2: owners have been negligent in their safeguarding of the children

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Speaker 2: who have used them. The tech giants better in Google

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Speaker 2: that own Instagram and YouTube must now pay six million

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Speaker 2: dollars in damages to a young woman known as Kayley.

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Speaker 2: She claimed that the platforms left her with body dysmorphia, depression,

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Speaker 2: and suicidal thoughts. Inevitably, both of these rulings will be

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Speaker 2: will be appealed, But for the moment, that's where we

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Speaker 2: stand with the law. Mone at duples C is with

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Speaker 2: the Digital Law Company and joins us now from Johannesburg.

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Speaker 2: Good afternoon, Monette. Some of the some of the analysis

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Speaker 2: that I'm seeing suggests that the implications of this are global,

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Speaker 2: and the implications for the social media apps, the way

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Speaker 2: they are allowed to be engineered, and the kinds of

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Speaker 2: profits that can be made from them could entirely change

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Speaker 2: the world of social media. Would you go that far?

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Speaker 1: Hi, Good afternoon, Sorry for all the fund on my

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Speaker 1: side in rainy Johannesburg. Yes, I think I would go

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Speaker 1: that far. This is such an exciting case and I

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Speaker 1: think it's precedent setting and definitely has global relevance. It's

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Speaker 1: the first time that these social media companies are held

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Speaker 1: accountable and the design features are made. The decisions are

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Speaker 1: made in the US at their head office, and if

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Speaker 1: they change the design features, it will have an effect

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Speaker 1: for absolutely everyone as the globe.

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Speaker 2: Okay, I don't know what the appeal process is going

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Speaker 2: to deliver. I have a feeling that this might end

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Speaker 2: up at the Supreme Court, and who knows what that

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Speaker 2: panel of judges might might find on this, But there

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Speaker 2: seems to be certainly no public acknowledgment of any kind

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Speaker 2: of guilt from the texture. They continue to say that

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Speaker 2: it's ridiculous to say that a social media channel can

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Speaker 2: make a teenager dysmorphic and suicidal. There are other things

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Speaker 2: going in their life. YouTube is not a social media channel,

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Speaker 2: was another one of the defenses. Do you think that

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Speaker 2: patients is running out with the way that these social

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Speaker 2: media giants conduct their business?

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, you know, they've vated responsibility for far too long,

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Speaker 1: and I think the jury wasn't having it. Meta and

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Speaker 1: YouTube tried to blame all of Katie's harm on her

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Speaker 1: parents and on her life circumstances. But the fact is

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Speaker 1: is that they were not only found negligent, but they

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Speaker 1: were found to have acted with malice and have designed

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Speaker 1: their platform to addict teens and children and all users

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Speaker 1: on purpose. And they were trying to see if they

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Speaker 1: could engage you. There's more and more, and they were

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Speaker 1: willing to have engagement at any cost. And these algorithms

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Speaker 1: and all of these features that they use. It's largely

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Speaker 1: similar to gambling features. And they know this. They've done

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Speaker 1: internal studies on addiction user attention. And these companies have

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Speaker 1: a long evaded responsibility in terms of the content hosted

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Speaker 1: on their platform due to the protection that the US

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Speaker 1: gives them for content on their platform. But this is

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Speaker 1: the features that are very very harmful and very addictive,

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Speaker 1: and I think they realize their golden ages is over

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Speaker 1: because they can't make the changes.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they can't make the kind of money that they

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Speaker 2: make at the moment, which really is very very very

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Speaker 2: significant if they don't have these features which encourage one

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Speaker 2: to stay engaged with the platform. And you know, engaged

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Speaker 2: with the platform is their sweet way of saying, we're

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Speaker 2: providing content which is magnetic and therefore people. And that's

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Speaker 2: different from addictive. And I think the word addictive probably

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Speaker 2: describes the engineering aspects of their algorithms better than interesting content.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, it's the compulsion, it's the infinite scroll, the algorithms.

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Speaker 1: And you know, it used to be that if you

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Speaker 1: scrolled Instagram, it would tell you that you all caught up,

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Speaker 1: and they just don't do that anymore. And their growth

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Speaker 1: has just exponentially increased, and the user attention has increased,

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Speaker 1: and they're trying to get more and more users, and

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Speaker 1: they have no concern for the age of the users,

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Speaker 1: or the mental health of these users or anything like that.

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Speaker 1: As long as they get the users on their platform

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Speaker 1: and keep them there as long as possible, they're happy.

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Speaker 1: And they've also found that the fatter they make their users,

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Speaker 1: the more adverse inappropriate content they show users decided they get,

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Speaker 1: and the longer they stay on these platforms, and this

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Speaker 1: is very clearly going to affect mental health of their users. Know,

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Speaker 1: they're not saying that they're responsible at all, and they

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Speaker 1: deny that they have those sorts of targets, but their

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Speaker 1: internal documents have been shown in this case, which is so.

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Speaker 2: So exciting because again, their defense in the court cases

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Speaker 2: and in the court of general opinion public opinion has

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Speaker 2: been but look at all of the warnings that we

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Speaker 2: give parents, look at all of what we put in

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Speaker 2: place to try and protect users from harm. And I

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Speaker 2: don't know whether they genuinely believe they are doing enough

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Speaker 2: or they are so deeply cynical that they are pretending

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Speaker 2: to try and prevent this harm while while knowing that

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Speaker 2: they are causing the harm and not caring because causing

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Speaker 2: the harm causes profits.

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Speaker 1: I think they know, and I think they don't care.

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Speaker 1: There's been so much expert testimony of whistleblowers that have

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Speaker 1: been working at Meta that have come to give testimony

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Speaker 1: at the court that said, we have let Mark Zuckerberg know,

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Speaker 1: We've sent him an email, We've told him we're very

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Speaker 1: concerned about the features, We're concerned about mental health of

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Speaker 1: our users, we're concerned about predators. There's been so so

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Speaker 1: many people who have come to Meta directly and said

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Speaker 1: high high up, that people that speak directly to Mark

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Speaker 1: Zuckerberg and they have been whistleblowers, blower than it's impossible

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Speaker 1: that he didn't know, and it's that's been made clear

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Speaker 1: in this case.

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Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Monette Douplas, the Digital Law Company,