PLATFORM vs USER: WHO’S LIABLE?

In Episode 4 of Trial and Error with Donte Mills, we tackle one of the most important and evolving legal battles in the country — the fight over social media liability.

When harm happens online, who is actually responsible?

Is it the platform that created the environment… or the user who posted the content?

This episode breaks down the real legal framework behind lawsuits targeting social media companies, including the power — and limits — of Section 230, the strategies plaintiffs are using to get around it, and how courts are starting to rethink accountability in the digital age.

We go beyond headlines and into courtroom strategy:

• How plaintiffs are framing claims against Big Tech
• Where these cases are gaining traction — and where they’re failing
• What defenses platforms rely on to avoid liability
• And what this means for future litigation, regulation, and your rights online

If you’re a lawyer, law student, content creator, or just someone trying to understand where the law is heading, this episode gives you the blueprint.

Because this isn’t just about social media — it’s about who pays when influence turns into harm.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If a platform designs something addictive and kids get hurt, is it the platform's fault or is it just user choice? What we're talking about today is social media liability. And will these platforms, uh, these big tech companies like Meta, Google, uh, YouTube, including Instagram, Facebook, will the algorithms that they push out, uh, will the impact that social media has on our children, um, will that lead to liability? Will that lead to a billion dollars in payout? Not just a billion, billions of dollars in payout. I mean a core legal question is I mean, what is social media liability? Trish traditionally, platforms are looked at as neutral publishers, right? We provide a space, you can go on YouTube and post whatever you want, you can go on Instagram, post whatever you want. And yes, we all, everybody, not everybody, but if you're viewing this, that means that you're on social media to some degree. Um, you've engaged in this. You may not have published anything yourself, or you may, you may have just put out some some tweets, you know, just a couple of lines of a thought that that you're having. You may have put out some pictures, whether it's on vacation or your family. We just had you know a holiday. Uh, you may have put something out because you want people that you don't have contact with on a regular basis to be a part of your experience. There's a lot of different reasons why people use social media. And it's hard to say that for anybody, a Monday morning quarterback, to come in and say, uh, you know, these kind of platforms, social media is set up in a way that's going to be addictive, and we should hold the the tech companies who provide this platform or this space accountable or liable and make them pay, you know, a settlement or make them uh pay out because harm has come to some of its users. But there's a line that I think we have to pay attention to in a legal space, and that line is once you start to curate the content, once you start to essentially push out certain things and line the content up, you're no longer just providing a space, you're manipulating the algorithm, uh, and I think that is what could get some of these tech companies in trouble. I mean, I'll tell you now, we're involved in this litigation uh with school districts against these platforms. But in this segment or this episode, I'm gonna try to be as objective as possible and just flush out what's happening with these cases so everybody can understand and make their own decision up. Because a lot of times, you know, what we face is this is a new area, not just in law, but in life. Social media is constantly evolving. I don't think anybody, maybe the founders believe that they could have this type of impact on society, but I honestly don't think they knew it would be to this extent. Social media controls everything we do. We learn from it now, we get our news from it, we get our sports highlights, we find out what's going on in the news, we look at our trends for how you dress, what you eat, um, the the skincare products. No matter what you can think of, there's an influencer who's trying to tell you that this is the new thing, this is what you should be paying attention to, um, this is what you should be buying, this is what you should be watching. Uh, this is the thought process you should have, and I think that's where the danger happens, and it goes from these platforms just creating a space to opening up their responsibility because now uh they are staring people into a direction, into a train of thought. And it's one thing to say, listen, me, I'm a grown man, right? I decide what I want to watch, and even if a video pops up uh after a video that I already watched, I can decide to turn it off, I can decide to put on a different video or uh get off the platform altogether. So I think there's a difference when you talk about adults uh or uh or grown-ups in these spaces uh being responsible for what they consume. That doesn't mean I uh that it's impossible for people to fall into that trap of social media where you go down this rabbit hole. We all know uh you can look one thing up, and then the next thing you know, your timeline is filled with that one thing. So you know it makes it difficult for you to turn away from it. If you are thinking about buying something, it's set up so these marketers. Uh, if you if you if you typed in some kind of search for a product, they now attach to that search, flood your algorithm with that product so that even if you were on the fence, you see it over and over and over again, and eventually you give in and you buy it. And that's the that's just the the foundation of it. And we have to remember that these social media platforms are private companies, so uh sales, uh generating income is going to be what drives these companies. And I don't think that's wrong. I mean, we live in a capitalistic society. Um, if you establish these companies and corporations, especially of that magnitude, you generally have a board that you have to uh report to and that you are responsible for maximizing their profits. Anyone who has a company, uh you can't exist if you don't make money. Right? If you're a private company, yeah, if you're you know a not-for-profit or something, you can you know you can get grants. Um, there's things that you can do if you want to provide a service at no cost. But we're talking about these companies that hire employees, they they put a lot of money and time into product development, uh bringing engineers in, uh, coders in, uh, people to make sure, you know, hiring bringing in equipment to make sure that when you go on to when you log on to Facebook, it doesn't, you know, shut down, right? That it doesn't get overloaded when there's a lot of traffic on there. So there's a cost to doing business, and I think we all have to understand that. I think it would be unfair not to. If we say that these social media companies should operate as if they are not for profit, I don't think that's fair. So part of it we have to recognize that these for-profit companies are going to try to maximize that, and there's a way that they can get their advertisers to pay them more money because they're telling advertisers, look, we're gonna have your consumers locked in. Not only are they gonna be locked in, but we have the ability to manipulate what they see so that if it's a possible consumer directly for your product, this is different than saying, Oh, you can put up a billboard and advertise to people who don't care about your product at all. So there's a loss you know leader right there where um most of the people seeing your billboard, they're not going to be able to, or not gonna be interested in purchasing whatever it is you're selling. But social media is different. If you're if you're a social media company, you're talking to the advertiser, you're telling them we can tap into your exact demographic, and not only that, we can wait for them to seek out your specific product and then flood them with it so that it makes it more likely that they're going to purchase your product, your return on your investment goes up because you know your advertisement is very targeted, it's phenomenal what they can do with that. Phenomenal. I've I've been involved in cases in the tech industry, and you talk about the way that they can target someone, a consumer. It's unbelievable. To the point that nowadays, and we've all, you know, this has happened to many of us, where you don't even have to type it in, you don't even have to do a search on your phone, you can talk about it with your friend, and then the next thing you know, you you're talking to your friend at a you know at a at a store or out of a bar and at their house, and then the next thing you know exactly what you talked about is popping up on your timeline. We all know that's not by accident. We know that that's by the social media company manipulating the software that they have. Yeah, Siri, all those people, they're they're listening, right? There's there's dispute, it can be dispute about their if they're recording, um, but they're monitoring for sure. The space to record what everybody is saying and the purpose for it, you know. I I don't know if that's there. I don't know if that's a realistic thought. Um, there's a lot of conspiracy theorists who say, you know, I never talk around my phone, or I'd never, you know, I cover up my my camera on my phone because I know they're watching. I I don't think that's realistic. It's just impossible to house that much data. So I don't know if they're recording it, but monitoring it for sure. Um we have to believe that our phone uh is trained to pick up on keywords, and when they hear those keywords and those keywords are tight, they're going to stare you into a direction. So because social media, these companies have the ability to do that and they are influencing what you see, and it's not just providing a space, now are they active participants? That's where the law comes in, and you say uh if you are an active participant in what someone is um encountering or taking in, and you've been made aware that the information that they're taking in can not only be addictive, but can be dangerous to their mental health, uh to their ability to socialize, to their ability to learn, to their ability to process, and you make a decision as a company that you're going to put this out on the platform and use it that way anyway, should you then be held responsible? There's been cases, uh, you know, uh already, uh yeah, there's many cases in suit. There's been a trial, uh, two trials already involving social media. Uh the one trial regarding an individual, uh, there was a verdict against the social media companies for a total of six million. It was three million for compensatory damages and three million for punitive damages, just so we understand the difference there. Compensatory damages is those are for things like out-of-pocket expenses. If the person who was involved in that case uh, you know, had medical bills or psychiatric treatment or psychological treatment, you know, any anything mental health related that cost that person out of pocket, you know, doctor's bills, if they miss work, uh, if they had some other expenses associated to the impact from that social media, that counts as compensatory damages, uh, and the jury rewarded three million dollars for that. There's also punitive damages. Punitive damages is meant to punish. Punitive is meant to punish. It's meant to say, not only did you call someone this out of pocket, we've given them damages for that, but we're also gonna look at if you should, if you were aware and were reckless in your behavior or intentional in your behavior, and you should have known or you did know that this could have caused damage, you should be punished for that. And not only should you be punished for that, but punished in a way that is going to impact you to hopefully prevent you from doing it again. One of the instructions that a judge gives when you're talking about punitive damages is they talk about punishing or damage award that punishes the company and essentially hurts their bottom line or makes them feel the impact of their behavior so they don't repeat that behavior. That generally translates to the jury seeing the amount the company generates and then putting out a number for punitive damages that will hurt that number. Because if you're not going to, you know, if a company is making billions of dollars and you do a punitive damages award of three million dollars, which happened here, it's really not going to impact the company, it's not gonna make them uh turn away from doing something again. Now, the the difference here, the caveat here is that's just one plaintiff you would imagine that was an individual. Uh clearly there are millions and millions of people who use social media. I don't know if there's millions that can say they were impacted, but maybe millions that will. Um and maybe the jury in their mind thought if we give three million dollars to one person, that can be multiplied. If a significant amount of other people bring these cases, that can be multiplied, you know, in theory, uh, for each person. So they wanted to kind of set the tone as to what each person should be entitled to and believe that maybe that large group of potential plaintiffs would then, if they all got a punitive damages award in the range of three million, then that would in fact impact the bottom line of these companies like Meta. But generally, when you talk about punitive damages, you're talking about a huge number. We heard a different number in one of the cases was like $300 and something million dollars. You know, I think that was more the jury thinking that this individual case, I want to punish Meta or punish Google with this individual case. I think it was a little different in that case in California. But we do have to recognize that uh legally, uh, if a jury hears that these companies, including Meta, had information, had internal emails, um, had meetings about the impact that social media was having on children, and recognize that if they continue to allow these young minds to access their site, that their mental health would be damaged, and they did it anyway, should they be held responsible? That's the ultimate question. Do you hold these companies responsible for that, or do you not give them a pass but say it's not on them? That it's on the parents. You know, some people take that argument and uh and say it's on the parents to make sure that their child doesn't have access to social media if they believe their child isn't ready for it. You know, it's an individual thing. Uh and it's difficult to set an age where social media would be acceptable. It's difficult to set an age as to what platform would be acceptable for an individual person, how long they should be on that platform. These are arguments that these social media companies are going to make, um, saying it's not on us. You know, we provided a space. Yes, we may have known that you know that they would be fed this constant information that it may impact them, but we believe that only people that were ready for it would be on our platform and that you know the parents would stop any children who weren't from from listening in or from watching uh or for taking part in these social media platforms. That's gonna be the argument of these companies. It didn't work in that these first two cases that we're talking about. We'll see if they adjust their arguments moving forward. Uh, but the jury ultimately found after they saw those internal documents uh and after they recognized that um these corporations were aware and con and and consciously decided to put these this content out anyway and allow things like the uh constant string where you watch one video and you can put your phone down and it just keeps going from one to another. Um so it kind of just keeps you locked in. The jury said that they were doing that intentionally and they should be held responsible for it. We know that generally, then we're talking about the law, uh, politics plays into that as well because generally uh our politicians are set up to monitor things that are happening to the general public and to make it safe. That's where laws come from. Uh so there is this gap where something is developed and it's generally given a bit to flush itself out. Um anytime there's change, it's gonna take a while for the Congress, for our politicians, uh, for our elected officials to get up to speed with what's happening, not only get up to speed with what's happening, but figure out what I can do to prevent the downside of that, but allow the upside. That's also a part of our culture, our our our the structure of our government, it is a capitalist society. We're built for innovation. I mean, I lived in Finland uh for a while. That's a socialist country, right where everything is shared, everyone has what they need. Uh, but you don't see the motivation to develop, you don't see the motivation to be innovative because if I work hard, create something, develop something, you know, there's going to be a cap on the benefit. Not everybody has those motivations, not everybody is in it for money, and I think that's a that's a good thing. Also, don't think it's a bad thing that people are motivated by money. Um, you know, it shouldn't take precedent over anything else, and and part of that is what we're talking about here, where these social media companies shouldn't say, How do we maximize our advertisement on this app at the cost of our young minds, you know, the young minds around us, our children, that are gonna be paying attention to this and led astray. You know, I don't think that money should be your number one priority, but how can you knock someone for uh working hard and expecting to be compensated for it? I think that's fair. Um, and and that's also how our society is set up. So we can't set up a capitalist society and then punish someone for making money. I just don't think that really is fair. Um that's just the way our country is is has developed. I think there is benefit to that. You know, if you look at uh a country like Sweden uh or Finland, uh which I love, you know, I loved my time in Finland. Um you talk about that whole Norwegian uh section, then uh Denmark, Sweden, Finland, uh that area. Uh there's some phenomenal people, uh some uh things that work very, very well, you know, as far as crime, things like that. Everybody has what they need, so you don't see a lot of crime. In fact, when I was in Finland, there hadn't been a murder in Finland, I think it was five years. That's phenomenal. Uh that's something that you would love to see in any nation. Uh, safety is is obviously key and a priority. What you didn't see though is a lot of innovation. Um, you don't see a lot of development coming out of Finland. Um, and I'm not picking on them, I'm just using them because I know the country I, you know, since I I did live there. Um, you just don't see that because of you know the lack of benefit. But that's not how America is set up, it's set up differently, it's set up so that we can incentivize people to create, incentivize people to develop uh and use their minds to look past what's happening right now and create something that will make our lives better. I think that's necessary. Imagine if we just rested on what we have now, time will go on, um, you know, things will move and we will be left behind. So that's definitely important. But there's going to be a cost to that because as you're developing, especially when something catches on like social media and just takes off. And we're talking about in a matter of years, it was nobody knew what it was to now. It's how we all, not all, but how most of us communicate with each other. Um, you can now go a long time without seeing family members, friends, or anything, but still be up to date on their lives. You can keep track with people that you went to college with or high school with or moved away from that before you never would have seen again. But now you can communicate with them on a daily basis. You see pictures of their families growing up, you see experiences that they're having, and I think it's a great thing. But it took off really quickly, and for a reason, because it does allow that. Um, it took off quickly, and I and I don't think it was possible for our elected officials to keep up. It's just they had to let it flush out, they had to let it let the impact. Of it be clear, you didn't want to kind of temper it and stop development, you know, and put laws in place that didn't allow it to grow and for those benefits to to flourish. But while you're doing that, there's going to be a negative aspect of anything new because there's nothing that's all good or all bad that our our politicians have failed to regulate. And I don't think it's because of lack of effort or willingness to do it. I think it's just because it's so new and and you don't want to over-regulate. Um, you don't want to shut down social media because you see the benefit. So I don't think our politicians have caught up uh to the point that they can keep us safe from social media. So, what do you do about that? From a legal perspective, we file lawsuits. Uh generalized with lawyers do. And I know a lot of people say, oh, see, uh lawyers, lawsuits, it's frivolous, it's nonsense, but that is it's an important part of our setup. Our legal um uh the ability for us to bring a lawsuit and say, we think that this product is harming us, we want to flush it out. You know, experts come in, they look at information, they do testing, they come in and testify in front of a jury. Uh it's flushed out. This isn't kind of willy-nilly, you know, they ask somebody like to take a poll on the street, hey, do you think social media is bad? No, the wit the juries in this case they get a lot of evidence. I'll see a lot of information. They hear from doctors, from psychiatrists, from engineers, uh, people who've developed these platforms and said either this is the benefit of it or the downside to it. We knew this was what would happen with it, and we figured it was a calculated risk because of the positive things it would bring, or here's what we held back where we couldn't, you know, where we where we knew that it would be so dangerous that we didn't include this. These juries hear all of that. Um, and I think that's an important part of the process of development because then in our legal system, after you put forth that evidence, you have a jury, and the jury is going to be people in our community, not lawyers, not doctors, not judges, maybe them, maybe some may be on the panel, but it's going to be just people in our community of all walks of life. That's the beauty of our system. I love our jury system. We bring in random people who have experience in all different things, uh, and they all listen to the same information, process it differently, and have to collectively decide what's right or wrong. And I think that plays an important part in the development of new things in our society. It's happened before. We talk about the tobacco litigation, where there were people who said, Listen, I didn't know that these cigarettes were so addictive, that this nicotine was so not only addictive but dangerous to my health. I got cancer. I got something that you know is going to kill me, or that one of my loved ones started smoking cigarettes because of the commercials, they became addicted, there was no warnings about how dangerous they were, and they got sick and died. And I believe there's a law that the cigarette company should be held responsible. That was the tobacco litigation, and that litigation produced a large payout amount because it was determined that those tobacco companies knew how dangerous their product was, how addictive it was, and decided to put it out anyway. And not just put it out anyway, but without warning anyone of how dangerous or addictive it was. And it was our jury system, you know, our legal system, our jurors that came in and said they heard that information and said, no, that shouldn't happen. Um, there should have been some kind of fail-safe, or even though you're a private company, yes, you're entitled to make money, but not at the expense of people's health. Once you saw those reports about how dangerous it was, about how addictive it was, you should have taken measures to make your product safe, or at a minimum, to warn people about the dangerousness of your product. And because of those lawsuits, not only was there a settlement with the big payout, but now you see those warnings on every cigarette box. That's because of those lawsuits, and that has been duplicated that with tobacco. That's the biggest one, I believe, it we're talking about to date. Maybe the opioid cases, but um it's important, and it's happened before then and after then in the legal space where people started to sue because these products were out on the market. Congress had not regulated, uh, but there was danger and there were there was harm happening to the users of those products. So I do know that the law plays a strong part in us sharpening what's available to us as American citizens, as people operating in this society. So I'm not surprised that the legal system is outpacing the legislative system because they're not ready to regulate that yet. But legally, we are ready to put forward information to juries and say, here's what these companies knew, and here's what they decided to do with that information. Now, members of the jury, you tell us, was it right for them to do that? Did it make sense for them to do that? Was it fair for them to do that to the consumers of their product? Now you may be asking, well, what could be done? What should have or what could have been done different in these social media cases? We talk about fail-safes that are easy to implement, and in fact, some of these companies claim to have like age restrictions. Trust me, if they want to prevent or have some kind of mechanism to make sure that uh the people using their product are of a certain age, they can certainly do that. In fact, they told us they were, they said, Oh, you know, we we've set it up so that if you're under 13, you can't do this on a platform, or if you're under 16, you can't do this. But there was no regulation for it, there was no verification set up, there were no rules behind it. And when you match that with the feasibility, how easy was it for them to ensure, or at least to get some kind of verification that the user who's seeing this content, specific content on their platform was of age, it would have been easy to do. So that's something that you may see happening as a result of these litigations, these cases. You may see some kind of verification that's needed from a parent or guardian if you are under a certain age in trying to access the platform. Does that mean there's going to be less users on the platform? Yes. Does that equal less profits generally for these companies? Yes. But how much is it how much is too much? How much is enough? If these companies that are making trillions of dollars, literally, uh, lose you know a hundred billion because they're uh the users that are 13 and under now go from you know they they lose 70% of those users, but those children are now free to develop, and their development isn't tampered or hindered because of social media. Is that trade-off worth it? There's some companies that say no, you know, I listen, I'm for profit, I want to, I don't want to lose out on a hundred billion dollars, even if I have a trillion dollars. I don't I shouldn't have to. Um and no matter what I hear, if I hear my product is addictive, if I hear my product uh damages the minds of these young children, that's not my responsibility. I put out a product, they decide how to use it. You hear that from the gun industry industry all the time. Listen, we put out guns. Well, you know, guns don't kill people, people kill people, right? You hear that a lot. And they say we put a product out, but uh we're not shooting anyone, but we're expecting that anyone who has access to our products are doing that legally, right? That they've got whatever license they need to carry a firearm, they took whatever training they need to shoot a firearm, and that our product is going to be in the right hands. There's a use for our product, you know, hunting, whatever they want to claim, um, even sport, right? There's there's nothing illegal about owning a gun for sport to just go to the range. If you just like shooting a gun, that's not illegal. So these companies have a right to make guns, they have a right to make profit off of guns, and that's the argument that they use. We put out a product, and and what you do with that product is on you. So far, I'll tell you, that's worked for the gun industry. I don't think they've been uh ever and maybe held accountable for putting out a product that causes so much harm and destruction. Uh but Congress has determined that there should be some kind of protection against liability for them. Congress hasn't determined that yet for social media companies, so we're in that gray area where a jury may determine that there should be responsibility for these companies. Um, and a jury can determine that's not good enough for us that you're saying, oh, we just put stuff out. Uh, and whoever puts videos on there, whoever puts pictures on there, they're free to do so. And if you want to search a certain topic and you see that topic, that's on you. You can stop searching, you can stop looking, you can turn it off. Um, I know there's gonna be people listening to that, like, listen, that that makes sense to me. All right, nobody's forcing anyone to be on social media, and I and I in part agree with that. But going back to the tobacco litigation case, if there's an understanding that it's addictive, especially to young minds, should there be a consequence? Is that a little different? Now, what could that the damages to that? Uh let's talk about that. What you said, you know, it's harmful, it's addictive to our young minds. What does that mean? Well, for that, we can look at, and this is something that we're heavily involved in, uh, the litigation as far as representing school districts uh against these platforms. I can break down for you how school districts are impacted. You now have children who all day, every day are addicted to being on their phones. That's just a fact. Uh that's not just children, it's adults, but we're gonna we're gonna limit this conversation to children. We're talking about the cases of the school districts against Meta or Google or these platforms. So you have them there addicted to their phones, they come in to distract it from learning. Um, they are taking their social cues and everything else from their phone, from these devices, they're not interacting face to face as much, they're not developing these social skills that are important to operate throughout life. It's making the job of these school districts harder because now they have to figure out a way to teach these kids through or around is probably a better term, around social media. You have to figure out now ways to reach them in the midst of all of this this chaos and distraction. You have to find a way to keep them engaged, uh, you have to find a way to kind of force them to socialize, to interact. Um you have to find a way to keep their attention because now their attention span is impacted because they're seeing these quick segments and videos and processing those and moving on to the next, and now they can't sit in a class for 40 minutes and get a lecture from a teacher and learn the full uh the full scope of information. They're used to just seeing these short clips with flashing words and and and not really having to be locked in or dialed in to one thing specifically for a long period of time. It's causing school districts now they have to hire more uh counselors, they have to find innovative ways to reach these kids that cost money. They have to do additional development and training on their end uh to find a workaround. Uh, they have to do things like pay for uh those bags. We all saw the cell phone bags where you you know you go into a concert or a comedy show, and now you go into schools. They have these bags where you put your phone in and it locks, and then when you leave out of school, they unlock it. You have to pay for that cost, they have to pay for somebody to run that. So these are extra expenses that these school districts have encountered because their job of developing children, our children, has been made more difficult. And that's not a small thing. I mean, uh these school districts already, a lot of them uh are not, you know, that there's limited um resources. So when you say we've developed this thing now that you have to combat, and it's not gonna be easy to do because of the addictive nature to this and the way it's retraining people's minds or or kind of preventing someone from developing outside of that, it's not gonna be easy to do, it's gonna be costly, you're gonna have to use more resources, and that's on you. Is that right? Or is the jury gonna look at that and say, listen, these these social media companies they knew of the impact, uh, and they knew it would cost something to counter that, so they should be held responsible for um paying some of that. They should be paying these school districts uh whose now whose job is now harder and they have to spend extra resources. These companies that are making trillions of dollars off of this platform should be paying these school districts to make up uh for those resources that they now have to put out. I mean that that's the nature uh of a lot of these cases. You identify the problem, social media, and the impact it has on the development of your brain. You see who's responsible for that, and you say these social media companies knew that this would happen because they have internal documents saying it's so addictive and and it's going to cause this harm or cause this damage, they put it out anyway. What's the impact of that? That's the next step. You look at the impact on the child's mind individually, and on the people who have to encounter that child or deal with that child or teach that child or house that child, and now the the complications that come along with that, and what's what it takes to delve into that and fix that problem. And you say who should be responsible for fixing that problem. We could say it's the parents or the school districts themselves or the teachers. Our teachers should be innovative. You know, social media is going to be the wave. We shouldn't be running from it, we should be diving in and you know, changing the lesson plans to include it. Uh maybe you're thinking that that's going to be the future, so why are we trying to reprogram anyway? Let's just let our kids go with it, but figure out how to operate in that space. There's some people who think that, and that's the beauty of the jury system. Just because these cases were brought against these social media companies doesn't mean that they're right. They have a chance to defend themselves, and the jury can say, no, we think it's going to be on the parents or the school districts themselves. We think it's it's fair game, you know, it's a for-profit company, and that if a parent wants to regulate, they have the right to do that. There's there's an opportunity for that to be the case. Will it be? I don't know. And then what would the cost of that be? We can look back at the case that already has been decided where it was an individual who got six million dollars, and if you multiply that out, the school districts we're talking about uh the New York City Public School District, they have it's like 850,000 kids in that school district. So if you magnify that or multiply that by $3 million, you know, we're talking about billions of dollars. Um Los Angeles County School District, 450,000 kids, Philadelphia County School District, over 200,000 kids. We're talking about these metropolitan areas where people are concentrated and trends they go even faster because everybody's on top of each other. You know, it it may impact those places more. Um so do you look at those differently than say the middle of the country where it's a little spread out? It may not pick up the trends, maybe you know, you're able to you may be able to hold off them trends because it's not so many people around you, and you're around other people more. You congregate, you know, in a different way, so you're able to manage the amount of intake for those kids. You know, are those cases looked at differently? Those are all things because this is a new area that are going to be flushed out. But I can tell you this: these cases are they're here, they're coming, these trials are coming, and it's going to be worth a lot of money for sure. So we're past the part where you have to um say, are these companies big enough to put their feet to the fire? Their feet are gonna be to the fire. Are these algorithms algorithms that they're using, is it neglect? Is that um fostering of someone's mind when you're pushing something? Is that wrong, or is it just an organizing tool? You know, these companies are gonna say, Listen, our algorithms, we're not pushing anybody to buy a product, we're just organizing. So when you put something in your search box, we just lump everything together for organization, not that we're pushing it on you, but that's just the way it's set up, you know, it's easier to organize, and if you're doing a search, we want to make it easier for you. Um, will that defense work? I mean, those are things that we have to talk about. Um with the design of these platforms. The other thing that we can talk about, and I think is an important issue on this, is the First Amendment. A lot of these platforms are gonna say, listen, this is free speech. We can we can say anything, we can show anything. Um if there's no illegal activity in the videos that we're showing, even if they say the same thing over and over again, we have the freedom to do that. We have the right to do that. Free speech, you can't curtail that. You can't tell us we can't talk to, you know, put it put a video up about certain content. But then the argument becomes uh is content content moderation is that protective speech. Um if you are deciding what someone will or will not hear, is that truly freedom of speech? Or now, because you are moderating that, does it take it outside of that element? So there's gonna be arguments on both sides of this. And I don't think it's gonna be easy arguments, that's why you know it's gonna be a lot of cases put forward to get us just get a sense of how the public feels about this. Should I be able to listen to whatever I want, even if I'm a child, and I want to hear uh the somebody's thoughts on this topic, should I be screened from doing that, or should I have the freedom to listen to that? Because you know, it may not be anything illegal, but it's shaping my mind. Um so is there an issue, a First Amendment issue with content, or because uh of the the way that they are moderating it, does it now become something outside of protective speech? That's something that we're gonna have to flush out, and I don't know if we know that. Um the question really isn't is social media harmful? We know that it can be. That's just the truth. We know that it's driven uh people to commit suicide, it's caused body issues and and um people to look at themselves a certain way because all you see are these pictures of of with filters and and people made to look different who they are. So now you have people who don't feel comfortable showing who they really are, and and and maybe depressed if they then have to go outside and present to someone who says, Well, you don't look like you do on Instagram or Facebook. Um so just we know that social media. Media can be and is is harmful to a lot of people, but we also know that it's very beneficial to a lot of people as well. So we will in a legal system be able to flush that out and say what outweighs what, and if there's ways that you can narrow the scope, and just think about it with that tobacco case, that was a huge case, restrictions came out of it, warnings came on it, but they didn't stop selling cigarettes. They weren't forced to stop selling cigarettes, they were just forced to put warnings on their product so that you could then make a conscious decision, so then it was clear that you knew that this product was dangerous and addictive. And if you chose to do it after understanding that, now it's on you. See, once the warnings came out, you can't sue a cigarette company anymore for their product being defective because they told you it was, or their product being dangerous because they told you it was. That's where freedom comes in. How will that translate to social media? Well, they then if they regulate what miners can see or how long miners can be online or put some uh uh restriction or uh proof requirement for the age of someone using their platform, if they do that, if they put warnings on a platform every time you log on and it says if you're on for more than an hour, it may impact you know how you intake information. If that warning pops up every time you open an app with social media, is that good enough? Does that then take these companies out of the realm where they're responsible for what happens to you because now they've told you about it and it's up to you to decide. And will that standard be different for adults and children? I don't know if you can trust children to make that decision on themselves, you know, themselves. That's why they stopped selling cigarettes to minors. That's why they don't sell alcohol to minors because it's difficult to trust them to make certain decisions on their own, their mind is still developing, they're going to be easily influenced, they're going to be trapped in these cycles if an addictive thing is put in front of them. That's just by nature going to happen. So, uh, how will that flush out? We're gonna find out soon because these cases are happening. Uh, like I said, we're actively involved in cases, there's trials already happening, there's verdicts already coming out, we're going to be talking about significant amounts of money, but it's an important topic because this is something that's gonna control how we operate in our society moving forward. There is no life without social media. There is no life without social media. Um, nothing foreseeable where you can say they're gonna shut it down and just we're gonna go back to sending letters or emails or or or something like that. That's just not gonna happen. We know social media is gonna be here, but we also know that there's things that can be done to make it safer, especially for our children, and that we still have to flush out the role that the companies who provide these platforms will play and what responsibility they will have to its users, specifically children. So I'm interested to see how this develops. Uh I'm certain that we will be talking about this topic again because not only is it a hot topic now, but like I said, it's going to be here. But as these cases come up, as we're dealing with this, I'm going to come back and share some information with you about what we're seeing. Because I think it's important enough because it's happening right now and it's impacting us, our children, uh, and the people around us. So I want us all to be informed. Uh let me know any questions you have on this topic, any thoughts you have on this topic. Uh it's early in the process, and anything that you're thinking is important. You know, it's important to share those things so that we can get a sense of even how this should be regulated and how we can make this safer and better for all the content users. So I appreciate you using social media right now. Uh, that's what you're seeing or listening to me on. Um, but as we flush this out, I'll stay in contact, we'll figure out what's going on. Uh, but I thank you for tuning in. Uh trial and error, Dante Mills.