Is this social media's tobacco moment?
3/31/202620 min
A jury in a Los Angeles court has found Meta and Google liable for $6m in damages in a civil suit alleging their social media products are designed to be addictive to children. It could pave the way for thousands of similar suits. Today on the show, technology reporter Hannah Murphy joins Robert Armstrong and Katie Martin to discuss what the verdict means. Also, they go long cold brews and long a Netflix documentary about America's Next Top Model.
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First 90 secondsKatie Martin· Host0:00
[on-hold music] Pushkin. It's been a pretty wild few weeks, and it's hard to keep on top of everything you need to know in markets and finance, but don't worry listeners, we have got your back. One big story that's not about Iran came last week, and it's all about social media. A court found that both Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, and Google, which owns YouTube, are liable for content that's harmful to children and teenagers, and they must pay a few million dollars in damages. Meta shares are down by about 7% since that ruling, adding to earlier declines, while Google is down about 5%. Now, how much of that hit to shares is down to the ruling and how much is down to the general hit to markets because of Iran, we don't know. But these are huge companies with a massive weight in every investor's portfolio, so this stuff matters. Today on the show, do these rulings open the floodgates for social media companies? Is this social media's tobacco moment? This is Unhedged, the markets and finance podcast from the Financial Times and Pushkin. I'm Katie Martin, a markets columnist here at the FT in London, where we have some much needed holiday days coming up. And I'm joined, yes, by the big fella, Rob Armstrong, my partner in crime on the Unhedged newsletter in New York. But also big love