The lawyer who took on Meta – and won
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This is The Guardian. Today, the lawyer putting YouTube and Instagram on trial.
It's a bright February morning earlier this year in Los Angeles when Mark Zuckerberg finds himself walking through a pack of reporters. There are camera bulbs flashing, journalists jostling with mics trying to capture a truly historic moment. Zuckerberg's in a navy suit, grey tie against a white shirt, and he looks professionally blank, in a poker game kind of way. He's about to do something he's never done before. It's the first time Mark Zuckerberg has ever spoken in front of a jury. He's testifying in a case that's been brought against Meta, his company, the parent company of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp.
What was the courtroom moment when Mark Zuckerberg first testified about teen harm?
And he's on the stand being cross-examined by the personal injury lawyer, Mark Lanier. And Mark Lanier says to him, Mr. Zuckerberg, do you accept the fact that there are vulnerable children in the world?
I mean, children who come from difficult homes, who maybe have learning disabilities, maybe they're socially inept, low socioeconomic upbringing.
And Mark Zuckerberg says, yes, I do. And he says, do you accept that there are different ways that you can deal with these children? You could help them.
We could say, we're going to find those children and try to help them.
You could ignore them, go about your business. Not my problem.
Out of sight, out of mind. Walk on by.
Or there is a third thing you could do.
Well, you can look at those vulnerable, hurting children and their eyes could glaze over.
And you could see dollar signs on their backs.
And we could realize how much money we could make if we walked all over them and abused them, took advantage of them.
And Mark Lanier says to Zuckerberg, Mr. Zuckerberg, why did you go for option three?
He said, well, I don't think we did. I said, I know you did. Let's get into it because here are the documents that show up.
This was a landmark civil case taking on the world's biggest and most influential tech companies. The case hinged on the fact that these companies had deliberately created products that would make children addicted to them with catastrophic consequences for the mental health of young people. From The Guardian, I'm Nosheen Iqbal. Today in Focus, the people versus social media, the landmark trial taking on addictive tech. Jenny Kleeman, welcome back to Today in Focus. Thank you for having me. You're a journalist and author, and you interviewed American lawyer Mark Lanier for The Guardian's Saturday magazine and wrote this really fascinating profile. Who is he, and why did he pique your interest? He is a personal injury lawyer from the US, from Houston, Texas.
He is an extremely religious man and He preaches in a Baptist church on Sundays. He believes that he is on a righteous mission to do God's work on earth by taking on companies who he says their conduct has been less than virtuous and protecting vulnerable people he says companies are exploiting.
Faith and religion can do some wonderful things in this world, and it can also be abused to do some of the most horrendous things. The Bible teaches you to take care of those who are hurting, and it teaches you to take care of children, especially. And to me, the holy war is to stop the abuse, and it's a godly mission in my mind.
He takes on cases. They're known as bellwether cases. So he will represent a small group of plaintiffs and take on a big company and show that a path to justice is possible, after which thousands of other people will bring similar cases. Right. So he's taken on some of the biggest cases that you can imagine. He was involved in civil litigation against opioid distributors.
This week's court decision in Ohio ordered CVS, Walmart and Walgreens to pay more than $650 million to two counties. According to the lawsuit, stores were supplied with far more pills than medically necessary, fueling the epidemic.
And he also represented the case against Johnson & Johnson. Johnson & Johnson were accused of producing talc in a way that there was asbestos in the talc, which led to women getting ovarian cancer.
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