Ryan Knudson

Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power.

I'm Ryan Knudson.

It's Thursday, February 19th.

Coming up on the show, social media on trial.

This lawsuit being tried in Los Angeles, and the thousands of cases like it, follow a similar script as the lawsuits that were brought against Big Tobacco in the 1990s.

In the 90s, tobacco companies were sued by state attorneys general over the health impacts of cigarettes, and they had to pay more than $200 billion in settlements.

Now, in the trial where Mark Zuckerberg testified, the plaintiffs hope social media companies will face a similar reckoning.

But using social media, of course, is very different from smoking cigarettes.

A lot of people, including tech companies, say social media is a great way to stay connected and share information.

Still, there have been questions for years about whether social media can be addictive.

And over the last two decades, some researchers say they found a correlation between social media adoption and an increase in mental health issues among young people.

Up until now, lawsuits against social media companies have largely failed, thanks to a provision in a 1996 law known as Section 230.

Section 230 is basically the stipulation at the federal level that says platforms cannot be held liable for the content on their platforms that's third-party content.

And that has been proven in court time and time again.

That statute holds up.

Social media companies say that Section 230 is a bedrock principle holding up the entire internet, and that if it goes away, freedom of speech online would be threatened.

Here's Mark Zuckerberg in 2020.

in the past when Meta's been sued?

Meta will present a Section 230 argument and the case will get dismissed.

So that sort of protected them for a long time.