Zuck’s Big Problem – The whole point of Facebook is to addict users
Meta Platforms (META.O), opens new tab CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday repeatedly said during a landmark trial over youth social media addiction that the Facebook and Instagram operator does not allow kids under 13 on its platforms, despite being confronted with evidence suggesting they were a key demographic.
Mark Lanier, a lawyer for the woman suing Instagram and Google’s YouTube for harming her mental health when she was a child, pressed Zuckerberg over his statement to Congress in 2024 that users under 13 are not allowed on the platform. Lanier confronted Zuckerberg with internal Meta documents.
The case involves a California woman who started using Instagram and YouTube as a child. She alleges the companies sought to profit by hooking kids on their services despite knowing social media could harm their mental health. She alleges the apps fueled her depression and suicidal thoughts and is seeking to hold the companies liable.
Meta and Google have denied the allegations, and pointed to their work to add features that keep users safe.
“If we want to win big with teens, we must bring them in as tweens,” read one internal Instagram presentation from 2018.
“And yet you say that we would never do that,” said Lanier.
Zuckerberg replied that Lanier was “mischaracterising what I am saying.” The CEO said Meta has “had different conversations over time to try to build different versions of services that kids can safely use.” For example, he said Meta discussed creating a version of Instagram for children under 13, but ultimately never did.
Meta faces potential damages at the jury trial in Los Angeles, part of a wave of litigation against social media companies in the U.S., where cases are beginning to go to trial amid a broader global backlash over the platforms’ effect on young users.
Meta’s rivals Snap and TikTok settled with the plaintiff before the trial kicked off last week.
In one email, Nick Clegg, who was Meta’s vice president of global affairs, told Zuckerberg and other top executives, “we have age limits which are unenforced (unenforceable?)” and noted different policies for Instagram versus Facebook make it “difficult to claim we are doing all we can.”
Zuckerberg responded by saying that it is hard for app developers to verify user age and that the responsibility should be on the makers of mobile devices. Teens on Instagram are estimated to make up less than 1% of revenue, he testified.
MAXIMIZING SCREENTIME
Zuckerberg also faced questions about his statement to Congress in 2021 that he did not give Instagram teams the goal of maximizing time spent on the app.
Lanier showed jurors emails from 2014 and 2015 in which Zuckerberg laid out aims to increase time spent on the app by double-digit percentage points. Zuckerberg said that while Meta previously had goals related to the amount of time users spent on the app, it has since changed its approach.
“If you are trying to say my testimony was not accurate, I strongly disagree with that,” Zuckerberg said.
Jurors were shown a document from 2022 listing “milestones” for Instagram in the coming years, including incrementally increasing the time that users spend on the app daily from 40 minutes in 2023 to 46 minutes in 2026.
The milestones are not “goals,” Zuckerberg said, but a “gut check” for senior management about how the company is doing.
In response to questioning by Meta’s lawyer, Paul Schmidt, Zuckerberg said that Meta bases employee goals for its products on giving users a good experience.
“If we do that well, people find the services more valuable and one side effect is they will use the services more,” he said.
The appearance was the billionaire Facebook founder’s first time testifying in court on Instagram’s effect on the mental health of young users.
Matthew Bergman, a lawyer representing other parents who claim social media caused their children’s deaths, told reporters outside the courthouse that the parents, several of whom have been attending the trial, hope the cost of the litigation will force change in the industry.
“We know that simply because we have achieved this milestone, justice has been done,” he said of Zuckerberg’s testimony and the trial.
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HOT MIC: “I’ll F***ing Kill You…” Les Wexner’s Attorney Caught Warning Wexner – Crockett Presses on Trump Questions
The House Oversight Committee released a five-hour deposition today of L Brands co-founder, Leslie Wexner. The Victoria’s Secret billionaire was allegedly one of Jeffrey Epstein’s closest associates, as the late sex-trafficker was tasked with managing large sums of money and was granted power of attorney over Wexner’s fortune.
Rep. Robert Garcia claims that “approximately…a billion dollars” was either given to or provided in stocks to Epstein by Wexner. Additionally, Wexner transferred a $56-77 million dollar home in Manhattan, the Herbert N. Straus House, to Epstein.
During the deposition released by the House Oversight GOP account on X, a question was asked of Wexner regarding Epstein having other clients in addition to him.
Wexner went on to give a long-winded answer about how Epstein operated and inventoried Wexner’s estate. “I didn’t count forks and spoons…Jeffrey said, ‘People could be walking out with forks and spoons.’ Gee, that’s a good idea. We should have an inventory.”
Wexner said he hired a house manager who had run the U.S. Embassy in Rome.
At the conclusion of his long answer, Wexner’s attorney leaned over and began to whisper in his ear. The mic was still hot and picked up the warning:
“I’ll f***ing kill you if you answer another question with more than five words, ok?”
Both Wexner and the attorney chuckled after they went back to their respective places at the table.
At another point in the deposition, Rep. Jasmine Crockett asked Wexner about President Trump’s relationship with Epstein, and whether or not he ever witnessed “Trump having a sexual relationship with a person who was introduced to him by Epstein or Maxwell?”
“No,” Wexner responded.
“Has Donald Trump ever discussed Epstein with you?” she followed up.
Again, Wexner responded, “No.”
Crockett proceeded to ask if Epstein ever discussed Trump with him, and vice versa. Both times Wexner responded, “No.”
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How Apple News and other tech giants change the narrative for Democrats
Remember that time before the 2020 election when everyone was focused on social media election interference?
Including the fact that The New York Post had our accounts locked and our stories suppressed.
One of the results of all that was Elon Musk buying Twitter in an effort to rebalance the social media landscape.
Because everyone knew that Twitter, like that dumpster-fire called Wikipedia, was insanely politically partisan.
But there is just as much election interference going on now.
And it is time the Republican Party got on top of it.
Not least if they want to have a fair run in the midterms.
Because as anyone who uses social media will know there is still a lot of funny-business going on.
Where there was once flagrant distortion of the news, a number of the Big Tech companies are now doing things in a far more subtle and insidious way.
Take Apple.
For months I’ve been wondering why Apple keeps pushing me stories I have absolutely no desire to read.
Why does it keep offering me stories from the Guardian, BBC and other left-wing news-sites?
Why is Apple so intent on pushing me stories from the Huffington Post?
A left-leaning blog no one has read, or heard from, in years.
Come to think of it, why does Apple keep pushing a lifestyle magazine for the over-50s onto me?
The cheek.
I don’t mind reading a variety of news.
In fact it’s part of my job to do so.
But why is the pushing all going in one political direction?
The New York Post this week revealed one of the reasons.
Which is that Apple has set up a sneaky little system of its own, to make sure that their customers get indoctrinated in one political direction.
A study showed that out of 166 articles pushed by Apple News over a two-week period exactly half came from left-leaning outlets.
Most of the rest came from “centrist” news sources.
Not one of the stories in the carefully curated “top news” stories section came from an outlet that would be classified as “right-leaning.”
In January Apple’s top stories consisted of 620 stories from left-leaning and other news sources.
Exactly zero stories came from any outlet that could be described as right-leaning.
Among other tricks Apple tries to justify this by rating news sources on their “trustworthiness.”
And who could have guessed that conservative or other right-leaning outlets are consistently graded as “untrustworthy”?
While almost any left-wing news-site will be graded as the most trustworthy news sources of all time.
Funny coincidence, that.
The thing is that all this has a massive impact not just on the news that people absorb, but on the political priorities of the public.
Consider the way in which the story of the Minnesota Somali fraud scandal turned around.
For a few days everyone was focused on it.
Tim Walz and others seemed to be under some genuine political pressure for allowing fraud on a gargantuan scale to take place in that state.
Then suddenly the story was all about ICE.
And every news story being pushed our way seemed to be about how horrible ICE are and how noble the people are who had come out on the streets to shout abuse at them.
Was that a coincidence?
Was it organic?
It didn’t feel like it.
It felt entirely manipulated.
And indeed it was.
Because big tech companies can — if they want — completely change the narrative.
Without the American public even knowing that we are being manipulated.
Occasionally when a company like Apple is shamed for this they will try a quick correction.
Last week Apple chose to push one story from Fox News.
About the tragic death of “Dawson’s Creek” actor James van der Beek.
But that is hardly a story which is going to have any political slant to it.
And so all that Apple were really doing was throwing in one story from a right-leaning source in order to make their bias look slightly less obscene.
But as America gears up for the midterm elections lawmakers should take a closer look at what is really going on here.
Because social media bosses, like our law-makers, are very good about bemoaning our “divided” and “fractured” society.
They are far less good at identifying why this fracturing is happening.
One of the key reasons is that social media has caused a shift in news in recent years.
Where once we had different opinions on things, now we have different facts.
The social media companies are trying to push one set of “facts” onto the American people.
But they are “facts” which demonstrably all go in one political direction.
As voters go to the polls in November which set of “facts” will we be pushed our way by the tech giants?
The midterms are likely to be decided by voters’ attitudes towards the economy and the cost of living.
If voters feel that they are better off than they were two years earlier then the Republicans will benefit at the polls.
If people feel poorer then the Democrats will have a good run.
But a lot of the truth about consumer confidence, people’s spending and more comes down to attitude: whether we think things are getting better or not.
And a lot of that comes down to whether or not people are being told that the economy is going well or not.
It is very easy indeed to manipulate economic data.
Even easier than it is to manipulate a social media algorithm.
If the social media giants continue to line up against any “right-wing” or “conservative” news source then much of the voting public will be getting less than half of the actual story.
Perhaps it is time for a committee — lead by the vice president, or someone else in the administration — to look into all this.
They could start by hauling the tech giants in front of them and asking them what the hell is going on.
Because the administration — and more importantly the American public — deserve to know.
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