That’s So Meta: Landmark Tech Trial Begins

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The case of Luigi Mangioni is completely shifted, since pleading guilty to federal stalking charges, in the murder of UnitedHealthCare CEO Brian Thompson. His state trial in New York has now delayed indefinitely. The Tupakshikur murder trial is taking shape in Las Vegas, witnesses have started being called to testify there against Dwayne Kepiede Davis. Yesterday, we also covered the story of Lindsay Clancy and the killing of her three children. But perhaps more than any of these, the trial unfolding this week, that could have the biggest impact on your life, and the lives of those around you, is a civil trial in Oakland, California, concerning Mehta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. Mark Zuckerberg is expected to testify, but in the eyes of many tech experts, this is bigger than one company. This is a defining trial for social media in general, and yesterday, opening statements got underway. ABC's Mike Dubuski covers tech he joins us now, Mike. Can you just remind us what this trial is about? Yeah, totally, Brad. So this is Mehta headed to court in Oakland, California. And it's all over this lawsuit that claims Mehta harnessed powerful and unprecedented technologies to basically get younger people addicted to Facebook and Instagram, which are, of course, their flagship social media products. They're basically arguing that those features were designed to get young people engaged on the platform for long periods of time, and that resulted in all these negative health outcomes, everything from body dysmorphia to anxiety to, in some cases, suicidal ideation. It is time that the public see what the executives at Mehta have known all along, that their products are designed to addict and charm children. There's a separate claim in this lawsuit, Brad that alleges Mehta actually violated a federal online privacy law, as well, saying they unlawfully collected the personal data of their youngest users without getting parental permission. So there's a couple different issues at play here. This case actually goes back several years, which is why it might sound kind of familiar. It was launched back in 2023 by more than 30 state attorneys general. However, the judge in this case selected the AGs from California, Colorado, New Jersey, and Kentucky to ultimately wage this case in court. It does sound familiar both in like the actual cases and states, but also just like these broader themes we've been talking about for so long now about children and tech. Yeah, and it should, Brad, because Mehta just lost two very similar cases that dealt with a lot of these same questions in New Mexico and California just this year. Complete validation of what we've been screaming on the top of roofs about for years. Both of those cases had to do with the negative mental health impacts that features baked into these social media platforms have on consumers, particularly young people. And what do we mean when we're talking about features? Well, we're talking about the very design of Facebook and Instagram. Features like infinite scrolling where you're on Instagram. You're just scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and never reach the bottom. It is an infinite scroll. There's a term for that. There's also push notifications, which come up a lot in these types of trials. There are notifications that light up your phone. Some studies have shown they have a dopamine response in the brain as well. You can imagine, especially for younger people, lawyers have made the argument that, you know, this has a negative impact on their mental health, particularly if those notifications are going off 24/7, disrupting sleep and so on and so forth. We've seen that argument be made in the past. But it's a very great importance to a generation of people who have been affected. The cumulative effect of this, Brad, according to these lawsuits, has been that the consumer is worse off. And what's more, these cases alleged that Meta knew these features were harmful and went ahead with them anyway. This is something that we actually heard about years and years ago on Capitol Hill when Francis Hagen, the very high-profile Facebook whistleblower, appeared before lawmakers alleging that Facebook had all these research documents and material indicating that some of their features were having a negative impact on young people's mental health and they decided to move forward with those features anyway in an effort to maximize their profits, essentially. Facebook understands that if they want to continue to grow, they have to find new users. The way they'll do that is by making sure that children establish habits before they have good self-regulation. My hooking kids. My hooking kids. That's what she alleged in 2021 when she was on Capitol Hill, and that is now showing up again in these court cases. What are the states asking for, I guess, because Meta has had repeatedly that prosecutors are using hindsight on what they would have done. In fact, they say some of the government's solutions are similar to changes Meta has already implemented, and yet Meta is also saying a verdict against them could be worth $1.4 trillion. That sounds like enough to put a big company like that out of business. Yes, and it's crucial there that Meta is making that claim. So this was an estimate that came up in court filings, saying that if this case doesn't go their way, they could be forced to pay $1.4 trillion, according to their calculations. That's worth mentioning here, Brad, that the judge in this case, Yvonne Gonzales Rodgers, has called that number unreasonable, according to the outlet Law 360. Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act holds that platforms cannot be held liable for the content that gets published on them. For example, if I go on to Facebook and I say something slanderous about Brad Milkein, not that I ever would, you could take me to court, but you couldn't take Meta to court. That's the protection afforded by that particular Section 230 provision. What we've seen recently is this new wave of legal strategy from those critics of Silicon Valley, saying, "Hey, this isn't about the content." I don't really want to focus in my case on cyberbullying or nefarious actors who might be lowering kids to scary parts of the internet. You can't sue them over the things that the frenemies are saying to them at school or whatever, but you can sue them for making them see it again and again and again. Exactly. I can sue them so they say over the actual decision making that's happening in the sort of labs at Meta, at Facebook, at Instagram. They say that falls to a company's responsibility, as opposed to an individual's responsibility, and that marks a pretty different set of legal challenges that Meta is now going to have to face. So then I guess what do we hear in opening arguments and how is Meta responding to all these claims from prosecutors? Meta has largely fallen back on the argument that the teen mental health crisis does have a relationship with social media, but it's just a small relationship. It's one piece of a much larger puzzle. In fact, in their opening statement, Meta says that the states can't really prove that there's a definitive link between social media use and all these negative health outcomes. It's not a straight line between these two things. This is something that they have fallen back on in the past, saying that it's really difficult to make that particular argument, especially given how relatively new in the grand scheme of things, something like social media is. There's just not a ton of reliable data. However, it really hasn't panned out successfully for them in court. Again, they are appealing to decisions against them in New Mexico and in California. So it's going to be interesting to see how they continue to push forward with their arguments here for what it's worth in opening statements from the attorney generals. They say that Meta's ongoing efforts to address their role in this teen mental health crisis amount to tissue paper barriers to teens overuse of these platforms, basically saying things like parental controls aren't being used enough and time limits don't really work on these platforms. The sort of efforts that these companies have made to address some of the concerns that we've seen in reports across the country as it relates to this. Well, that's what's so interesting is that there hasn't been that much time to examine the data. And yet, there's been a full generation of people raised on Facebook and these social media sites at this point, so so many examples and so many lives, some would argue, upended by these social media policies. Alright, Mike Tabuski covering tech for us. Thank you so much. Yeah, of course, Brad, take care. Activon Start here. President Trump promises ships can sail through the Strait of Hormuz. He can't promise they won't get attacked. We're back in a bit. This show is sponsored by NetSuite. As businesses increasingly move toward an AI-centric world, they say that every day you delay, you actually fall two days behind. But how do you keep up? The competition's only moving faster. Luckily, there's NetSuite next. You've heard me talk about NetSuite before. It's an AI-powered business management suite that securely connects all your data. We're talking financials, inventory, commerce, HR, and CRM, all together in one single source. And NetSuite next brings all that to the next level by building AI into everything you do. It'll surface custom insights. It'll connect you with AI agents to help solve problems and answer your questions in a friendly way, like you're talking to a colleague. 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The bond market, the treasury market, it seems to be saying that as well. Remember bonds, those are little loans for the government. Not loans you're getting from the government mind you. No, when you buy a bond, you're giving a loan to the government. And in return, you get back a predetermined profit. It's generally a safe investment. That's why grandparents give it to their grandkids on graduation day. But that rate of return tells you a lot about the economic leverage of the government issuing it. Like, if the government is issuing bonds with higher rates of return, it's because they need to cash more. They want those loans. Well, as inflation started subsiding from the pandemic, you could trace these rates of return going a bit lower. The government was on stronger economic footing. Then on February 28th, being, you can see them start to head upward again. That was the day the US started bombing Iran. They rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions. And we can't take it anymore. This was not emergency territory or anything. It just seemed to echo uncertainty. President Trump assured people around the world that this would be over in a matter of weeks. We took a little excursion because we felt we had to do that to get rid of some evil. And I think you'll see it's going to be a short-term excursion. Well, this week, whatever was left of our ceasefire with Iran officially ended. There is currently no replacement deal in sight. And while Trump has insisted that the US controls the state of Hormuz, ships continue to be bombed as they try to pass through, clogging worldwide shipping, oil prices of risen. Heck, prices on almost everything have risen. We yesterday, more investors around the world started dumping their bonds. This often happens when people can smell inflation rising. And when governments are sinking further into debt, it also means for the rest of us that mortgage rates and credit card debt are heading back up. The committee remains resolute. You've heard this before, but we will deliver price stability. Looking at these numbers, it was almost like you could see investors reckoning with the prospect that this Iran conflict is not a blip, but it's not going anywhere. That is exactly the opposite of the message that President Trump wants to be sending right now. Let's go to ABC's chief Washington correspondent, Johnathan Carl John. First off, can you just walk us through how the Trump administration is portraying the situation in the straight-of-hormuz right now? Well, there's contradictory messages. You heard from Energy Secretary Chris Wright saying that it's essentially a conflict zone. But the president has been suggesting that everything is fine that the US is in total control of the straight. In fact, he floated the idea that he could declare it a US territory. Last week you said that you would soon declare the straight-of-hormuz to be a territory of the United States. Could you elaborate? Well, I think it's a great idea. I mean, we control it. We control it with the blockade. That is not in any way reflecting the reality on the ground. As you know, Brad, shipping through the straight-of-hormuz has basically been at a standstill very few ships going through the straight. And the Iranians are absolutely insistent that they are not going to allow the straight to be cleared until the United States meets not just some of the demands that they have, but all of them. And let me tell you, it's a long list of demands. It was going to say about Iran. I mean, we're seeing more ships struck just this week. And by the way, not all of them in the straight-of-hormuz. We also saw ships struck right off of Yemen. That's by the Red Sea, which was supposed to be the alternate shipping route. So all this traffic, you'd think, just continues to grind to a halt. And Iran doesn't sound like they're going anywhere, John. Yeah, I mean, Iran's defiance has only increased. They seem to sense weakness on the part of the United States. A desire that's pretty obvious to anybody that reads his social feed, a desire on the part of the president to end the conflict on the Iranians, are saying, no, no, no. We want a lot of things. They want to make a deal, but they're not going to make the kind of a deal that I feel is necessary. We want a total end to any U.S. aggression or threats of aggression in the region. They want reparations for damage done to Iran. They want lifting of sanctions, lifting of oil sanctions. They want unfrozen assets. They want the whole long, laundry list of demands that Iran has had for a long, long time to be given to them before they will consent to allowing free traffic through the straight. The straight is open, and the oil prices are coming down, and they will continue to come down unless we decide to do something far more drastic than we're doing. Then they've been having these negotiations, you know, bilateral negotiations with Oman about setting up a system for a commercial traffic through the straight. It is basically setting up a huge toll, a toll for ships coming in and going out. In other words, not free traffic through the straight. That is no longer on the table as far as the Iranians are concerned. This is why Trump was threatening Oman then to be like, "No, no, no, that can't happen." Yeah, exactly why Trump threatened to expand a war that he's been trying to end for several months, saying that he would go after Oman if they got in the way of the President's plans. But look, the President has said many times that the United States has control over the straight. I'm sorry, it's just not true. By the way, John, when we think about shipping, when we think about inflation going up, when we think about American debt, we're in the middle of midterm season. So I got to imagine the White House is hoping Americans can just like keep the faith that this will somehow be worked out. Where do negotiations stand with Iran? Because I know Trump's own family members were meeting with Middle Eastern leaders in recent days. Yeah. I mean, Jared Kushner in the region, but he wasn't meeting with the Iranians. He was meeting with Hamas, not with the Iranians, negotiations that there are no signs of any significant negotiations underway with Iran. In fact, it seems like the administration that the President has been convinced this is the way to do this has settled on a strategy of economic pressure on Iran and waiting them out until they just can't handle it anymore. So this means leaving the blockade in place, ramping up sanctions and hoping that the pressure will build. So eventually, the Iranians have to relent. But that is a very long prospect, Brad. It is not something that happens overnight. It's not like the Iranians are facing, the regime is facing midterm elections. They know that Trump is and they know what kind of pressure the Americans will feel. So it's kind of the two sides trying to enforce economic pain on the other. Iran is in big trouble. They have 300 percent inflation. The country is a mess and the military is totally defeated. The Iranians seem to have at least for now the upper hand there because they clearly understand that there is a political dynamic back in the United States. And by the way, they do have a little bit of a memory about what happened back during the 1980 election with Jimmy Carter and how a very young Iranian revolutionary regime put pressure on an American president, economic pressure especially as well as political pressure going into a key election. And here we have history in a way repeating itself. Right, the young regime very much established now. And by the way, not just the U.S. either, like investors around the world are selling bonds with all these different governments. You can tell all these governments have something to lose if this war continues the way it is right now. Jonathan Karl at the White House. Thank you. Thanks, Brad. Drugs on college campuses are nothing new. The nonprofit American Addiction Center say the most abused drugs are alcohol and marijuana followed by prescription pills and party drugs, but when you think about it. So how recreational drugs get on campus is not just kids pilfering from their parents or buying from a guy in the parking lot, it can be a large scale operation. Well, this week, authorities in Pennsylvania have charged more than a dozen people in what they say is a drug ring dedicated to trafficking cocaine on the campus of Penn State. And to hear prosecutors describe it, participating in this operation, it'd really become part of Greek life at some fraternities. ABC's Matt Rivers has been following this, Matt, what do the authorities find here? Well, so according to the Attorney General of the State of Pennsylvania, he calls this a major cocaine operation that kind of went between Philadelphia, New York City and the Penn State campus. There was nothing junior or childlike about this type of conduct. This was an upper level trafficking organization for this region in Pennsylvania. Led primarily by two individuals who were now both former Penn State students, one at the top of the food chain, again, according to officials, a gentleman named Agostino Abatello, multiple witnesses who testified in front of the grand jury referred to Abatello as the largest dealer of cocaine for Penn State University students. And underneath him, a guy named Thomas Robinson, what authority said is that they were bringing kilos of cocaine at a time, principally from suppliers in New York City and Philadelphia, and then selling it there on campus. They ended up charging 13 former and current students. There were some current students involved in the overall 13. And I should add, Brad, there was a 14th person also charged, a Pittsburgh based attorney who is the father of Thomas Robinson, authorities are saying he allegedly interfered in this investigation. So of all the people that were charged, the top people, five of them received felony charges, others receiving misdemeanors, but clearly this is a big enough case, a big enough operation that the Attorney General wanted to make this a big deal and make it very public in the way he has. And how did it allegedly work on campus? So like these guys allegedly according to authorities, these guys will get keys of cocaine from New York and bringing in. But once it hits campus, what happens after that? Because again, there's lots more people allegedly involved. Yeah. So to hear authorities describe it, Abatello was the main hookup in between New York and Philadelphia. Robinson helped distribute things on campus. But what was really interesting and what stood out to me was the way it was then packaged on campus. What authorities alleged here is that it's both the death of Upsalon and Sigma Chi houses, which are both fraternities that are off-campus at Penn State, only one of them dealt to Upsalon is actually officially within the university's Greek system there. But apparently they were packaging and cutting these drugs inside those two fraternity houses, even at times allegedly as part of a hazing ritual. We found a pattern of events that showed cutting and bagging cocaine was for some pledges and indoctrination into the Delta Upsalon and Sigma Chi fraternities. Varties say they were prepping these drugs for sale inside of fraternity houses there off-campus. Unbelievable. How does the university respond, both about this and perhaps the fraternities themselves? So the university comes out and says Sigma Chi was not a part of the official Greek system there. It operated independently. Delta Upsalon though was. It said it immediately suspended depending the review. Both of the national organizations that are behind Sigma Chi and Delta Upsalon have also denounced those allegedly involved. So uniformly any oversight body of these organizations has denounced what's happened here. But this is just the latest in a string of notorious cases within Penn State fraternity life. Cases in the past couple of years as well where female students were being sexually exploited allegedly inside of some of these fraternity houses. So this is just yet another black mark on the fraternity system at Penn State and something that the university can and should be reckoning with. And that's what Penn State says they're doing is continuing to investigate all this from an organizational standpoint as well. All right. Matt Rivers covering it all. Thank you. All right. One more quick break. When we come back, the land is solid as a rock, but that rock is melting. One last thing is next. This is the first time we've ever been in a community for two or three years. We've never been in a community for a long time, since we've never been in a community for so long. We've never been in a community for so long, since we've never been in a community for so long, since we've never been in a community for so long, since we've never been in a community for so long, since we've never been in a community for so long. We've never been in a community for so long, since we've never been in a community for so long. One last thing. Climate change has the potential to do lots of things. It can dry out river beds, it can warm the oceans, which can lead to even stronger storms and hurricanes, but can it also smash your town with rocks. Meet the very worried residents of Condorsteg, Switzerland. Condorsteg is one of the most beautiful villages you will ever come across. It's in the Swiss Alps right near a blue lake nestled at the foot of dramatic mountain peaks. Up above the 1300 residents are cows casually patrolling the hillside. And yet even further up lurks something far more ominous, a mountain rock formation that is held together entirely by permafrost. That's soil and sediment that has remained frozen for centuries. You probably wouldn't know it was permafrost if you looked at it. Trees can grow out of it. Stones are wedged into it. It's like concrete. If concrete could melt back into liquid. In the warm temperatures, they do not only melt glaciers, they also help with permafrost. That's Marcus Stoffel, professor for climate change and natural risks at the University of Geneva. He told the Associated Press that if the permafrost melts, catastrophe follows. In the mountains and in the unconsolidated debris, there is lots of ice. And once that this ice is melting, it acts like a cement. This mountain slopes will become increasingly unstable. This entire slope, called the Spitzestye, could break off and would likely end up blanketing the town. This is not the first time a landslide could wipe out an entire city. In fact, just last year, the Swiss town of Blattin was almost entirely demolished when a glacier collapsed. Nathan Soluthern, a climate and energy expert for Greenpeace Switzerland, says it might not be the last, either. Maybe one day we even have to abandon certain valleys, certain villages, because it's still becoming impossible to live there. Residents of Condor Stays say they're nervous but confident in the plans laid out by town authorities. That rock is under constant surveillance. Evacuation groups have been established. You are aware it's happening but not afraid. So they try to do all the precautions what they could do. But still then, it's nature. But all of this adds up to a much bigger modern conundrum. Entire towns, entire cities, have been built on and under what looked like solid ground. But those assumptions, much like the mountains themselves, might not be as solid as you'd expect. I think the home insurance is like in these mountain towns. Like is there, is there permafrost insurance? More on all these stories on ABC News Live, Arabia Stream Live News. I'm Brad Milky. See you tomorrow. According to the news, we're talking about two and a half years ago. Some of you have been talking about shops in Shopee-Faissa. Some of you have been talking about shops in front of you. Shannen Maldonado, the founder of the Artesan Institute of Technology, has been a member of the Institute of Technology. The Institute of Technology has been a member of the Institute of Technology, which has been a member of the Institute of Technology. The Institute of Technology has been a member of the Institute of Technology.