Naomi Nix

You're listening to Today Explained.

Can't use the word Epstein on TikTok since Trump allies took ownership.

Absolutely CCP levels of censorship.

My name is Naomi Nix.

I am a reporter at The Washington Post.

I cover social media.

Well, this is really, you know, the first time that social media addiction cases are going to be headed to a jury trial.

Hundreds of parents, school districts, and state attorneys generals have filed lawsuits alleging that the way tech companies like Meta, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat...

have designed their products, have made them especially addictive to young people, and that that has harmed teenagers and fueled a mental health crisis in today's young people.

TikTok and Snapchat were also named, but they have already settled out of court.

Essentially, jury selection has begun in the first of a cohort of social media addiction cases.

It focuses on the story of a woman who's now a young adult.

She is anonymous, but goes by KGM.

And essentially, she says she used all those social media platforms throughout her childhood.

We should expect testimony from top executives like Mark Zuckerberg and Adam Masseri, as well as this sort of debate about, you know, her own life.

We've already seen in filings that the companies like Google have alleged that, you know, there are other things going on in her life that may have contributed to her distress.

And so that case will play out and they'll pivot to the next bellwether case.

It's really about the platform design.

And so they focus on things like an endless stream of content, right?

They focus on features like autoplay on YouTube, right?