\n<\/p>\n
W<\/span>hen Mark Zuckerberg walked into a Los Angeles courtroom on 18 February flanked by an entourage bedecked in Meta Ray-Bans, some people laughed. If this was an attempt at product placement for the company\u2019s newest range of smart glasses, it was jarringly ill-judged: Zuckerberg was about to testify before a jury in a landmark lawsuit that sought to prove that Instagram and YouTube are addictive by design, and he had passed a throng of bereaved parents on his way into the courthouse. But the prosecution team, led by Mark Lanier, were not laughing.<\/p>\n This was a serious trial. For the first time, the most powerful names in social media were being held to account for the inherent design of their platforms, rather than the content hosted on them. They were accused of deliberately and maliciously building products that keep children hooked, with disastrous consequences for the mental wellbeing of young people.\u00a0It was a landmark case \u2013 a big tobacco moment for big tech.<\/p>\n But there were specific reasons why the prosecution was deeply disturbed to see Meta Ray-Bans in court. \u201cWe had fought hard for an anonymous jury. We didn\u2019t want the names disclosed in a way where Google could go pull up their Gmails, where Meta could go pull up their Facebook accounts,\u201d Lanier tells me in his warm Texas drawl. \u201cThen Zuckerberg shows up with security guards wearing Meta glasses. They can easily do facial identification and figure out exactly who the jurors are.\u201d This was not product placement, Lanier says \u2013 it was the deployment of the most relentless form of digital surveillance the world has ever known.<\/p>\n The prosecution appealed to the judge, pointing out that Zuckerberg\u2019s entourage was breaking rules that forbade cameras in the courtroom. \u201cThe judge made them swear that they hadn\u2019t taken any pictures.\u201d Lanier says. \u201cAnd then they took the glasses off.\u201d<\/p>\n The case of KGM v Meta et al was always going to be as hi-tech as it was high stakes. KGM \u2013 also known by her first name, Kaley \u2013 claimed that an addiction to social media that had begun with YouTube at age six and Instagram at age nine had caused her to develop body dysmorphia, anxiety and depression. (Snapchat and TikTok, named in Kaley\u2019s original complaint, had settled out of court for an undisclosed sum before the trial began.) Lanier\u2019s team had to convince the jury that Meta and Google had engineered their products to be addictive. It was a test case that could blaze a trail for thousands more to come.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d never been in court before,\u201d Kaley, now 20, tells me in her first newspaper interview. \u201cSeeing all those people, and having all their eyes on me, was very\u00a0overwhelming.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Mark Zuckerberg arrives at the Los Angeles court with two members of his entourage, who are wearing Meta glasses.<\/span> Photograph: Jill Connelly\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Lanier knew this was a case like no other \u2013 and that his opponents were prepared to use every power at their disposal to win it, including artificial intelligence. <\/strong>Google and Meta have their own AIs: Gemini and Meta AI, respectively. Lanier was determined to beat them at their own game. (A self-described \u201cAI zealot\u201d, his firm employs a team of five whose sole responsibility is to produce a weekly report for him on advances in AI over the previous seven days.) Lanier asked a company called BoodleBox to make him a bespoke AI incorporating a combination of Gemini, Claude, ChatGPT and other existing models. He used it in \u201c30 different ways\u201d for Kaley\u2019s case, he says, but when he tells me about just one of them, my jaw drops.<\/p>\n The jury might have been anonymous, but the legal teams were able to gather a significant amount of data about each member during jury selection, Lanier explains. \u201cWe have questionnaires they filled out that tell us their age, their gender, their occupational history, their family status. But it gives us more insight: it asks, who are three people you most admire and why? Who are three you least<\/em> admire and why? How do you feel about this or that on a scale of one to 10?\u201d Armed with a dossier of information, Lanier\u2019s AI created models of every juror, \u201ca demographic and psychological exemplar\u201d of each one that allowed him to try out potential arguments on individual members. At the end of each day in court, he would feed the transcripts to his AI shadow jury and ask questions. What did juror number 11 think of the witness? What did juror number seven think was important? Where did juror number three get confused? \u201cPretty cool,\u201d he grins.<\/p>\n AI can be used for good or abused for evil, Lanier says \u2013 just like litigation, which he has been practising for 42 years, or religious faith, which guides everything he does. A devout Christian, Lanier believes he is on a divine mission to take on companies that enrich themselves by exploiting the vulnerable.<\/p>\n \u201cThe opposing side had unlimited resources. They had dozens<\/em> of lawyers in the courtroom. To call it a David versus Goliath storyline is maybe giving too much credit to David, but it\u2019s the best descriptor I can give,\u201d he says; the disparity between him and his opponents was even larger than the biggest mismatch in biblical history. \u201cThis was a righteous case, without a doubt. It was a holy war.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Lanier with his daughters Rachel (on left) and Sarah (right), who worked with him on the case, on the steps of the courthouse.<\/span> Photograph: Ted Soqui\/EPA\/Shutterstockdouble quotation markPoliticians will never hold these people accountable. The only thing they fear is a jury<\/p>\n On 25 March, when the (real, human) jury returned its verdict, Lanier stood on the steps of the courthouse alongside two of his five children \u2013 daughters Sarah and Rachel, who worked with him on the case \u2013 and hailed \u201ca righteous moment\u201d. The jury had found Google and Meta liable on all counts and had awarded Kaley $6m: $3m in compensatory damages and an extra $3m in punitive damages, because Meta and Google were found to have \u201cacted with malice, oppression or fraud\u201d. Meta will shoulder 70% of the bill, with Google picking up the rest. But these damages are only the beginning: more than 2,000 similar lawsuits are now being brought against social media companies, accused of harming the mental health of children with products that are addictive by design, using the legal route Lanier proved viable in Kaley\u2019s case.<\/p>\n Ever since they stood behind Trump at his second inauguration, the power of the tech titans has seemed ever more unassailable. (Lanier tells me big tech now hires one lobbyist for every six members of the 441-strong US House of Representatives.) But Kaley\u2019s legal victory is a reckoning \u2013 one that could threaten the entire social media business model.<\/p>\n \u201cPoliticians will never hold these people accountable. The only thing they fear is a jury,\u201d Lanier says. \u201cI get 12 ordinary people, and they\u2019re empowered. And when they hear that evidence and they take their oath seriously \u2013 bam<\/em>! \u2013 they can do something.\u201d<\/p>\n I<\/span> meet Lanier in Yarnton Manor, a grade II-listed estate in Oxfordshire, built in 1611 by Sir Thomas Spencer, a distant ancestor of Diana, Princess of Wales. He lounges on a teal sofa in one of the wood-panelled rooms, sometimes with a leg dangling over the sofa\u2019s arm, sometimes hugging one of the velvet cushions, often leaning forward to gesticulate in animated \u00adexcitement as he shares a biblical reference or damning piece of trial evidence. It\u2019s a swelteringly hot day in late May, and Lanier, 65, flew in from Houston yesterday, but he looks fresh as a daisy. He only needs four hours\u2019 sleep a night. \u201cSleep\u2019s a bonus, but not one that\u2019s necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n Lanier\u2019s charitable foundation bought Yarnton in 2021 and turned it into a centre for religious study. He preaches in a Baptist church every Sunday; he has another study centre in Houston. \u201cIn the US at least, Christian faith has a bad reputation of being vibrant only among uneducated, unenlightened, bigoted, narrow-minded people. Those of us who hold on to a faith are responsible for trying to bring out the good that can come from it \u2013 not the holier-than-thou stuff that seeds division,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m a lawyer who has funded all of this by trying to grab hold of people whose conduct has been destructive.\u201d He draws a rectangle in the air above his head, tracing the corners of the ornate coved ceiling. \u201cIt was the Johnson & Johnson case that bought this,\u201d he grins. \u201cMy wife and I call this the J&J Manor House.\u201d<\/p>\n double quotation markNormally, I want an eye-popping verdict that causes Wall Street to recoil and causes in-house lawyers to lose their jobs and companies to respond differently <\/p>\n Before he took on Google and Meta, Lanier was involved in some of the most high-profile landmark litigation cases in the history of big pharma. In 2018, he won $4.69bn (reduced on appeal to $2.12bn) for 22 women with ovarian cancer and their families after Johnson & Johnson failed to warn them of the carcinogenic risk associated with the talc in their Baby Powder. Natural talc is often mined within close proximity of carcinogenic asbestos; Lanier argued that Johnson & Johnson had known this for decades without warning the public. (Johnson & Johnson said in 2018: \u201cJ&J\u2019s baby powder is safe and does not cause cancer. Studies of tens of thousands of women and thousands of men show that talc does not cause cancer or asbestos-related disease.\u201d) In 2019, he won an 11th-hour $260m settlement from opioid manufacturers and distributors on the eve of what would have been the first federal trial in the history of the opioid epidemic.<\/p>\n Lanier\u2019s \u201cbread and butter\u201d, he says, involves ubiquitous, household-name products that can cause serious harms, which the companies behind them know about but choose not to act on. \u201cNormally, I want an eye-popping verdict that causes Wall Street to recoil and causes in-house lawyers to lose their jobs and companies to respond differently,\u201d Lanier told a podcast recently.<\/p>\n When he began his career, at a big Houston law firm, he just liked winning. He learned the psychological skills and rhetorical techniques that helped him excel in court: how to make things memorable, how to read a room and change the energy in it, \u201chow to make word choices that will trigger visceral reactions, how to use story to bypass people\u2019s natural defences\u201d. But after five years of straight wins, he lost \u2013 in a case where he knew his client was in the wrong. Licking his wounds on the drive home, he had an epiphany. \u201cI thought, what am I doing? Did I almost take my gifts, my talents, my skills and wield an injustice?\u201d Aged 29, Lanier started his own firm so he could pick what he considered to be \u201crighteous\u201d cases. \u201cYou can do horrible things with this power, or you can do good.\u201d<\/p>\n Lanier estimates that settlements from drug companies following his landmark opioid litigation are now in excess of $10bn. His victory in the Johnson & Johnson case opened the floodgates to tens of thousands of claims from people with cancer and their families \u2013 including one currently in the high court of England and Wales, with more than 7,000 claimants. J&J deny the allegations.<\/p>\n In the wake of Kaley\u2019s win against Google and Meta, the former Facebook employee turned whistleblower Frances Haugen claimed that Meta could be on the hook for $1tn in future damages from tens of thousands of people who have been harmed by the use of their platforms as children. This might be an overestimation, Lanier says. \u201cBut tens of billions, easy. Part of it also is: are they willing to make real change? Reasonable change is something that a lot of us would put a high value on.\u201d<\/p>\n At the time of the Johnson & Johnson verdict, Lanier remarked that suing in an initial test case with only a small cluster of plaintiffs allowed him to maximise the emotional impact of claimants\u2019 stories on the jury. \u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0easier to get justice in small groups,\u201d he said. \u201cIn\u00a0small groups, people have names, but in large groups, they\u2019re numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n K<\/span>aley was a lone plaintiff, and a reluctant trailblazer. It was her mother who brought her case to the attention of lawyers. (Kaley was identified only as KGM in court because the alleged harms took place when she was a child.)<\/p>\n \u201cI was really scared,\u201d Kaley tells me in a video call; she has chosen to keep her camera switched off. \u201cI had a lot of anxiety around the thought of them deleting my accounts as a punishment. And that did end up happening, at least with Snapchat.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s a duality to the way Kaley speaks: giving evidence in the trial has prepared her to be able to answer difficult questions about the most challenging parts of her life, and that, combined with her low voice, can make her sound older than her 20 years. But her responses are often brief and staccato, and she sometimes struggles to find the right words, like a teenager.<\/p>\n double quotation markI was on Instagram from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed. I was on my phone during class \u2013 I would get in trouble, I got bad gradesKaley<\/p>\n Brought up by a single mother in Chico, California, along with an older brother and sister, Kaley grew up with learning disabilities, in a household without much disposable income. By the time she was nine, she had uploaded hundreds of videos to YouTube, and soon had dozens of accounts on both YouTube and Instagram. \u201cI liked that I could post my own stuff and see how many likes I got. I liked being able to see what my friends were up to.\u201d When Kaley wasn\u2019t posting, she was scrolling. She stopped engaging with her family. She no longer left her home. Once, she spent more than 16 hours on Instagram in a single day.<\/p>\n \u201cI was on it every day from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed. I was on my phone during class \u2013 I would get in trouble, I got bad grades because I was not paying attention.\u201d She was terrified at the thought of anything happening to her phone. \u201cIf I was walking next to a lake or something, I\u2019d be so scared that I was going to drop my phone and lose my social media.\u201d<\/p>\n Her mother tried to intervene, activating screen time limits or confiscating Kaley\u2019s phone altogether. \u201cBut I would freak out,\u201d Kaley says. \u201cI had withdrawal symptoms. It was just so hard to do anything else.\u201d She would get up in the middle of the night to search for her phone, or \u201cbeg and beg and cry\u201d until she got it back. When her mother removed Instagram from Kaley\u2019s phone, Kaley sneaked a hand-me-down phone from her older sister so she could download the app again without her mother knowing.<\/p>\n Almost as soon as she joined Instagram, Kaley started playing with filters, enlarging her eyes, shortening her nose. \u201cI\u2019d take a selfie with a filter on, and then see myself \u2013 how I actually<\/em> looked \u2013 and I would just feel really ugly,\u201d she says. \u201cIt made me get all these new insecurities, and to see myself in a way that others didn\u2019t actually see me.\u201d Aged 10, Kaley started to cut herself. She went on to be diagnosed with depression, anxiety and clinical body dysmorphia.<\/p>\n L<\/span>anier didn\u2019t want Kaley to sit through the entire trial. She gets easily distracted, he says; plus, it was his\u00a0job to convince the jury that she had been seriously harmed by Google and Meta\u2019s products. He didn\u2019t want\u00a0her to come away from it believing she was irredeemably damaged.<\/p>\n Delivering his opening statement, Lanier stacked three wooden ABC toy blocks on top of each other. \u201cI\u00a0thought, I will tell the jury this case is as simple as ABC \u2013 Addicting the Brains of Children,\u201d he explains. \u201cThere\u2019s a principle in psychology and learning called cognitive ease: we automatically assign credibility to the things we more easily understand. There\u2019s a principle in rhetoric: the power of threes. Threes just seem to resonate within our soul and minds. ABC, one, two, three.\u201d (In his opening statement at the Johnson & Johnson trial, Lanier used ABC Scrabble tiles to impress upon the jury that \u201cAsbestos, Breathed or internalised, causes Cancer\u201d.)<\/p>\n Then Meta lawyer Paul Schmidt delivered his opening statement, pushing back. \u201cWas it Instagram or other causes?\u201d he asked. He told the jury the root of Kaley\u2019s mental health issues lay in her chaotic upbringing; that her home life and learning disabilities meant these problems would be inherent in her life anyway. Lanier bats away this idea. \u201cJust because someone has a headache doesn\u2019t give you the right to bash them over the head with a rock and say, \u2018They already had a headache! Don\u2019t blame me<\/em>!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Lanier was not allowed to respond to the defendants\u2019 opening statement in court. But as he walked out of the courthouse that day, he spoke to the throngs of media waiting there. \u201cThe next morning we get to court, and the bad guys want to have a discussion with the judge off the record.\u201d In the judge\u2019s chambers, he says, Meta\u2019s\u00a0team complained that Lanier\u2019s rebuttal to their opening statement was being widely reported in the press, and called on the judge to prevent him from speaking to journalists.<\/p>\n Once again, Lanier deployed the power of three. \u201cI\u00a0said, \u2018First of all, I didn\u2019t do it in court \u2013 I\u2019m on the sidewalk outside. Second of all, you\u2019ve instructed the jury not to read any of the media. Third of all, the defendants in this case are social media<\/em>. They\u2019re producing press releases! They\u2019re putting posts on Instagram!\u201d <\/strong>(While the trial was ongoing, Meta had worked hard to spread the message that the company took the welfare of young people seriously, both on their own platforms and in their wider communications with the public.) \u201cIt makes my little comment on the courthouse sidewalk pale in comparison.\u2019\u201d Meta\u2019s lawyers ultimately backed down. \u201cThe judge said, \u2018You do realise there are four billboards up around the courthouse with your ads on them talking about how you care for children in all you do \u2013 and you\u2019re complaining about Mr Lanier<\/em>?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Lanier photographed in the library of Yarnton Manor, Oxfordshire.<\/span> Photograph: Gareth Iwan Jones\/The Guardiandouble quotation markIt\u2019s very naive to think parents can stand up against the trillion-dollar companies and the most aggressive technology in the history of human civilisation <\/p>\n The bereaved families outside the courthouse each day \u2013 some waving placards that read \u201cWe are KGM\u201d \u2013 wanted the wider context of Kaley\u2019s struggles to be recognised. But the defendants had argued that Lanier should not be allowed to mention other young people who had suffered harm as a consequence of social media use. \u201cThey wanted to make her the exception,\u201d he says. \u201cThe sad part is, we\u2019ve got a generation<\/em> of Kaleys. Go to a restaurant and look how many people are sitting there in her age range like this \u2026\u201d He takes his phone from the coffee table and hunches over it. \u201cIt\u2019s such a waste of human capital. All to make money flow to a handful of rich white guys who want to run the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Parents buy the phones those kids are hunched over, I say. Shouldn\u2019t they be able to establish and maintain ground rules? Lanier smiles. \u201cIt\u2019s very naive to think that we have such awesome parents in this world that they can stand up against the trillion-dollar companies \u2013 with their algorithms and their deceitful tools \u2013 and be well enough informed to fight the most aggressive technology in the history of human civilisation. Kids get on YouTube at school. Kids go over to their friends\u2019 houses. Kids have lunch with other kids. Does parenting make a difference? Of course<\/em> it does. Can parents beat the machine? No way.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Sign up to Inside Saturday<\/span><\/p>\n The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Lanier was also not allowed to talk about the content hosted on social media; in the eyes of the law, YouTube and Instagram are not publishers, so are not responsible for the content they host. \u201cBut the content is part of what they use to addict you.\u201d Imagine going into a bookshop and idly picking up a book from one of the display tables, he says, only to see every book on every table change to be something statistically proven to be interesting to people drawn to that kind of book \u2013 including some that might shock, enrage or titillate you. Touch another title, and all the books change again, as the bookshop narrows down your interests as effectively as it can. Unlike bookshops, the social media algorithms want you to browse for ever.<\/p>\n \u201cThe algorithms are amoral \u2013 they\u2019re machines. They\u2019re relentless. You\u2019ll never find them wavering, or low on energy, or distracted. And their entire design is to try to keep your attention on their platform. They are scary.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n M<\/span>eta and Google were damned by their own documents: the millions of pages of evidence the judge required them to hand over, and a few others leaked by whistleblowers. \u201cThrough the industrious hard work of a lot of young lawyers reading, and the industrious hard work of AI, we were able to find the <\/em>lines of gold.\u201d Lanier says it was an embarrassment of riches.<\/p>\n Internal documents showed the companies had deliberately sought out \u201ccasino science\u201d to turn their products into what Lanier calls \u201caddiction machines\u201d. Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok all use intermittent variable rewards, giving their users little unpredictable dopamine hits, just like slot machines with their micro-payouts that keep you sticking around for a big jackpot that may never arrive, endlessly scrolling on your phone instead of pulling a handle. A 2012 Google memo about YouTube said its \u201cgoal is not viewership; it\u2019s viewer addiction\u201d. Another document from Google referred to its products as \u201cslot machines\u201d. \u201cThese are attention casinos,\u201d it read. \u201cThe house always wins.\u201d<\/p>\n There were documents from Google and Meta revealing the \u201cdark patterns\u201d they deploy to manipulate their users\u2019 behaviour. Take the features Kaley\u2019s mother wanted to use to protect her daughter: they were not easy to find, and were switched off by default. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to determine there\u2019s a protective feature, go find it and toggle it on,\u201d says Lanier. \u201cThe toggle itself<\/em> is subject\u00a0to dark patterns: people will toggle differently if there\u2019s a blue dot when you toggle, versus if it doesn\u2019t change colour.\u201d<\/p>\n This makes me think of my own efforts to control my Instagram feed, by toggling the button requesting that it doesn\u2019t show me suggested content. I have to go into my settings and toggle it again every 30 days, and given that it doesn\u2019t change colour, I\u2019m never really sure that it has worked. \u201cIt\u2019s insidious,\u201d Lanier says. \u201cAnd let\u2019s say, as a parent, you do this for your kid. Did you set a calendar reminder to go back to your kid\u2019s phone 30 days later when it defaults back?\u201d Even if you were organised enough to do this, he adds, the platforms change their settings so often that it\u2019s impossible to keep up.<\/p>\n There was a Meta document from 2018 that read: \u201cIf\u00a0we want to win big with teens, we must bring them in as tweens\u201d; a YouTube slideshow featuring children as young as four and the suggestion that parents could use the platform as a \u201cdigital babysitter\u201d; a 2019 research report commissioned by Meta that found teens had \u201can addicts\u2019 narrative about their Instagram use\u201d, and that \u201cthey wish they could spend less time caring about it\u201d.<\/p>\n Then there was the testimony given on the stand. In a memorable exchange with Lanier, Instagram boss Adam Mosseri said that 16 hours a day on the platform might be \u201cproblematic\u201d, but he would not call it an addiction. \u201cYou can call it problematic use. You can call it tweedledee,\u201d Lanier says. \u201cThe issue wasn\u2019t the magic word \u2018addiction\u2019 \u2013 it was the harm.\u201d<\/p>\n But the prosecution had to prove that Kaley\u2019s use of social media caused<\/em> the harm done to her mental health, and that was a challenge. \u201cSocial media companies have seeded the literature with stuff that says their product\u2019s beneficial. For decades, big tobacco said, \u2018Tobacco doesn\u2019t really cause lung cancer \u2013 look at all these studies!\u2019 And what you didn\u2019t know is big tobacco had ghostwritten them or funded them,\u201d Lanier says. A\u00a0psychiatrist and a therapist both testified that, in Kaley\u2019s case, her body dysmorphia was<\/em> caused by her social media use. \u201cThe other side argued it was the residuals of bad parenting.\u201d The sad part, Lanier says, is that Meta\u2019s own documents show they know that when adolescent girls from low socioeconomic backgrounds with existing mental health challenges spend extended periods on social media, their mental health deteriorates.<\/p>\n When Zuckerberg took the stand \u2013 the first time he had testified in front of a jury \u2013 Lanier put it to him that he \u201csaw dollar signs written on the backs\u201d of vulnerable kids. He presented Zuckerberg with an internal document, which showed that, in 2015, a third of all 10- to 12-year-olds in the US used Instagram, even though under-13s were not supposed to have accounts, and\u00a0an\u00a0email from an executive that said, \u201cMark has decided the top priority for the company is teens.\u201d Zuckerberg said this was no longer the way the company operated, and that he had worked for years to address \u201cproblematic use\u201d of his platforms \u201cbecause it\u2019s the right thing to\u00a0do\u201d.<\/p>\n At the end of questioning, six prosecution lawyers unrolled a 50ft-wide collage of some of the hundreds of selfies Kaley had posted on Instagram. Urging Zuckerberg to look at the heavily filtered images, Lanier\u00a0asked him if Meta had ever investigated Kaley\u2019s account for problematic use. Zuckerberg did not answer.<\/p>\n Lanier had planned to question YouTube CEO Neal Mohan on the stand, but ran out of time \u2013 the judge had given the prosecution only 43 hours to try the case. \u201cI\u00a0decided I didn\u2019t need him,\u201d Lanier says. But Google is just as culpable as Meta in Kaley\u2019s case, he adds. \u201cYouTube was a gateway drug.\u201d<\/p>\n Time pressure was one of the reasons why they decided to settle with Snapchat and TikTok before the case came to trial. \u201cI could have hit a good verdict against them,\u201d Lanier says, a little wistfully. He planned to compare the safety features that are present in the Chinese version of TikTok and that aren\u2019t present in its international platform: a limit on night-time use, no infinite scroll, mandatory time-outs once users have been on the app for a certain amount of time, and the deployment of AI to determine if users are children, \u201cbased upon factors including what you\u2019re looking at, the size of your finger when you\u2019re scrolling, how fast you scroll. There are tons<\/em> of ways that they are required to be safer over there.\u201d<\/p>\n Google claimed that the entire case misunderstood YouTube; that it is a streaming platform, not a social media site. \u201cYou have an ability to message, to like or dislike, to comment, to follow. It\u2019s not just media \u2013 it\u2019s social<\/em> media,\u201d Lanier declares. But just in case that argument wasn\u2019t enough, the prosecution team asked Google\u2019s very own AI what it thought. Gemini\u2019s response was unequivocal \u2013 YouTube is<\/em> social media.<\/p>\n O<\/span>n hearing the verdict, Kaley\u2019s overriding feeling was relief \u2013 for herself, and for all the people who can now follow her. \u201cI knew it meant that other cases would get to go to court, so I was feeling happy for the other families.\u201d The thousands of cases that were poised to be brought against social media companies should she win have now been set in motion. <\/strong>She hasn\u2019t received any damages yet; Google and Meta are appealing, and Lanier says the process will take seven years. \u201cHowever long it takes is however long it takes,\u201d Kaley says. \u201cI\u2019m\u00a0OK with it.\u201d Despite her ongoing struggles with her self-image, Kaley\u2019s victory has helped her recognise the contribution she can make to the world, and how much people value her.<\/p>\n Should the case end up at the supreme court, Lanier doesn\u2019t think that the politically appointed judges will be swayed by seeing this as a partisan issue. \u201cIt crosses the political aisle. Typically, Republicans are friendly to big business in the US, but some of the most stalwart folks on this are Republicans. It matters to anybody who\u2019s a parent.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span> Photograph: Gareth Iwan Jones\/The Guardiandouble quotation markThe child who\u2019s addicted to social media can easily become addicted to pornography, sex, gambling, pills<\/p>\n In the meantime, Lanier is helping other legal teams who are bringing cases against social media companies, while his firm is fielding new inquiries from people who say they have been harmed by compulsive social media use. \u201cThose that have legitimate cases that I can do, I\u2019ll\u00a0represent. It\u2019s got to be a child that was addicted. We\u2019ve got to have some counselling or psychiatric records. If it wasn\u2019t bad enough to go see a professional, then it\u2019s not bad enough to bring a case. Within the framework of that, I\u2019ll take those cases.\u201d<\/p>\n Why does the focus have to be on kids? \u201cChildren\u2019s brains are still developing, and the last part to develop is that ability for self-control that sees future consequences. With adults, it\u2019s going to be hard to win. The jury\u2019s going to think, You\u2019re an adult, you ought to be able to weigh the consequences,\u201d Lanier replies. \u201cThe problem is, once you get addicted, addictive pathways are easily transferable to other addictions. The child who\u2019s addicted to social media can easily become addicted to pornography, sex, gambling, pills. Your body\u2019s ultimately just craving the dopamine.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, Lanier will not be the lead lawyer on the thousands of new cases being brought against Google, Meta, Snapchat, TikTok and other social media companies. He is clearly very good at what he does, with the skills to win against giants in big pharma as well as big tech. I wonder whether his trailblazing victory for Kaley can be replicated in other courtrooms, by other lawyers.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s a fair question,\u201d Lanier replies. \u201cEmbedded in it is a kind of compliment \u2013 so thank you, that\u2019s kind. Does the skill of the lawyer make a difference in these cases? Yes, it does. Am I the only lawyer who can win these? Absolutely not. I\u2019m not necessary \u2013 but I\u2019m useful.\u201d<\/p>\n In June, Keir Starmer announced a social media ban for under-16s, due to take effect in early 2027, after nine out of 10 respondents to a government survey supported it. Lanier thinks Starmer\u2019s plans are \u201cbrilliant. It eats away at the fabric of our society if children have access to materials that they are not mature enough to handle.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s the first step in the right direction,\u201d Kaley says. \u201cBut kids are sneaky and they might still find a way to get back on it.\u201d<\/p>\n Some who oppose the ban \u2013 including the campaigner Ian Russell, whose 14-year-old daughter, Molly, took her own life after being deluged with suicide and self-harm content \u2013 say the only way to protect children is to force social media companies to change their business models, which rely on addictive features and algorithmically driven content. Litigation may be the only way to bring those changes, Kaley says. \u201cThey\u2019re only going to change if somebody forces them to.\u201d<\/p>\n Lanier\u2019s firm is now working on a claim against OpenAI brought by bereaved parents who say ChatGPT was instrumental in their son\u2019s suicide. He also has a forthcoming suit against Roblox, the most popular online game platform among eight- to 14-year-olds in the UK. \u201cIt\u2019s a breeding ground for child exploitation, a forum that allows child predators to thrive and to connect,\u201d he says. The addictive features of the platform will be part of that case, too.<\/p>\n Kaley tells me she has no idea what the future holds for her. She is still on social media, in the places that haven\u2019t banished her in retaliation for taking legal action against them. She still posts selfies and videos; she thinks she always will, even though she hopes not to one day. \u201cIt\u2019s very difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n Lanier is considering writing a book about Kaley\u2019s case. A documentary might be in the works. He has already starred as himself in a movie, the 2011 Chris Evans film Puncture (released as Injustice in the UK). It tells the true story of Michael Weiss, the Houston-based lawyer behind a class-action lawsuit against hospital syringe distributors in the US; after Weiss died from a drugs overdose in 1999, Lanier took on the case and won a landmark settlement in 2004.<\/p>\n Lanier is the first to admit that, in the past at least, he loved attention. \u201cWhen I was a younger man, probably the quickest way to get hurt was to get between me and a camera,\u201d he says, a twinkle in his eye. Perhaps that\u2019s why, despite everything he has learned, Lanier is still on Instagram.<\/p>\n \u201cI do a video thought for the day, five days a week, based on some biblical idea. They get posted on there for distribution and availability,\u201d he says when I bring this up. \u201cI\u2019m not someone who thinks that social media is inherently evil. It\u2019s like any tool: it can be used for good and it can be used for evil.\u201d<\/p>\n His 15-year-old granddaughter watches his videos, he tells me. So how does Lanier see the future for her, and his 11 other grandchildren? Is the digital world going to be safer for them following Kaley\u2019s victory?<\/p>\n \u201cThe optimist in me says yes. The realist in me says not so fast.\u201d He leans forward. \u201cMark Zuckerberg has immense power, and power is as addictive as any drug. Do we really<\/em> think that he\u2019s going to readily abandon a portion of his power? The realist in me says this is going to be a war that will last my lifetime \u2013 and the lifetime of others.\u201d<\/p>\n In the UK, t<\/em>he youth suicide charity Papyrus can be contacted on 0800 068 4141 or email pat@papyrus-uk.org, and <\/em>in <\/em>the <\/em>UK and Ireland <\/em>Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123. <\/em>In the US, the <\/em>988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline<\/em> is at 988 or chat for support. In Australia, the crisis support service <\/em>Lifeline<\/em> is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at <\/em>befrienders.org<\/em><\/p>\n In the UK, t<\/em>he charity Mind is available on 0300 123 3393 and Childline on 0800\u00a01111. <\/em>In the US, call or text <\/em>Mental Health America<\/em> at 988 or chat 988lifeline.org. In Australia, support is available at <\/em>Beyond Blue<\/em> on 1300 22 4636, <\/em>Lifeline<\/em> on 13 11 14, and at <\/em>MensLine<\/em> on 1300 789 978<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When Mark Zuckerberg walked into a Los Angeles courtroom on 18 February flanked by an entourage bedecked in Meta Ray-Bans, some people laughed. If this was an attempt at product placement for the company\u2019s newest range of smart glasses, it was jarringly ill-judged: Zuckerberg was about to testify before a jury in a landmark lawsuit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[1844,2016,17961,6539,205,1086,24975,204,261,1341],"class_list":{"0":"post-51071","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-case","9":"tag-google","10":"tag-holy","11":"tag-lawyer","12":"tag-media","13":"tag-meta","14":"tag-righteous","15":"tag-social","16":"tag-war","17":"tag-won"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/51072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}