Lauren Feiner

One thing I think about that's kind of a big difference between this moment and that

for big tobacco is that there's that saying that there's no safe cigarette.

And there's a lot of studies that show that's not really the same case for social media, that some level of social media use has a positive or at least neutral effect on people.

It's really that overuse, that compulsive use that is the main problem here and really the problem that people talk about.

Social media does connect people with their friends, lets you stay in touch with people.

lets you have social connection or connection outside of your immediate community.

But obviously, it also has really harmful sides to it.

And using it too much can cut you off from real social connection.

So I think that's a big difference here.

And so when people compare this to that moment, I do think that's really something we need to think about.

These aren't really one-to-one scenarios.

That said, I think the comparison is made to pull out how

These companies are finally having a lot of their documents come to light in front of juries, just like happened in the big tobacco trial.

So I think that is really the point to take away from that comparison.

So far, we've seen a big push from the lawmakers who are behind some of the biggest social media reform laws like Kids Online Safety Act saying, well, this just shows that we need these new laws or we need to repeal old laws like Section 230.

in order to make kids safe.

So I think that is the big push right now.

I think, you know, it's still really early days though.

And I am going to be really interested to see is that kind of where the momentum moves or is there maybe even a kind of a counterbalance to that that says maybe let's slow down because actually the sort of cases we thought wouldn't be able to go through

through the courthouse are actually moving forward.