Shannon Bond

We've been talking a lot in recent years about a mental health crisis among kids.

The plaintiffs are claiming that because of excessive use of these apps, it's causing things like anxiety, depression, body dysmorphia, eating disorders, and like I said, in some cases, really, really tragic outcomes.

Well, what they're saying is that, you know, it's not just that this company is sort of disregarded the potential harms.

They're saying these companies knew about these harms and made these products anyway, you know, included these features anyway.

They're saying essentially they were prioritizing their profits over the safety of children.

You know, that is an argument that the plaintiffs are very explicit.

They are saying this is like the tobacco companies.

You know, you had this research.

You knew these were problems and you hid that from the public and you continue to push this product out.

And to make that argument, the plaintiffs are relying on a ton of internal documents that they've gotten in this legal process from the company.

So studies that the companies have done about the way kids use their apps and

You know, marketing research, all kinds of internal communications that in many cases, you know, when you sort of when you're looking at the pieces that have shown up in these court documents, you know, some of the stuff does look pretty damning.

You have the companies talking about parts of products, you know, working like slot machines or, you know, really wanting to keep kids using it more and more.

Now, the companies say this is being taken out of context, that they're, you know, cherry picking quotes here.

But look, we know how tech companies work, right?

They need users.

They constantly need like a new influx of people using them.

People get older.

Yeah, I mean, pretty obviously they dispute these allegations, right?

They point to the safety measures they've already put in place for kids.