Ten Thoughts on the Historic Meta-Google Verdict

On March 25, a California jury delivered a landmark verdict against Google and Meta, finding both companies guilty of knowingly, and negligently, making their products addictive to minors. The court ordered both companies to pay a young woman named Kaley, who argued both were responsible for her childhood addiction to social media, $3 million dollars in compensatory damages and another $3 million in punitive damages. Meta will foot 70% of that bill, Google the remaining 30%.

I had been following this case (and a smaller parallel case in New Mexico) closely. Both were decided within a day of each other, and both came down along similar lines. Having sat on the news for a couple weeks, here are ten thoughts I have about this case and what I think comes next.

1. Whatever comes from the appeal phase of the trail, it is a significant development in a growing anti-social media movement. For the first time, a jury of regular Americans–not tech writers, educational activists, or government watchdog groups–have confirmed something that has been obvious to anyone who works with minors for the past fifteen years. Even if the appeals process overturns this result, the fact that it happened at all is turning point. Two of the most powerful Empires of Digital Babylon were held to account, at least briefly, by the rule of law of the nation both companies operate from.

2. $6 million dollars in damages makes for great headlines, but for Meta and Google, this isn’t even pocket change. Both companies regularly pay court-ordered penalties magnitudes larger than this as a routine business expense from lawsuits that are less interesting to the public. In the New Mexico case, the jury ordered Meta to pay $375 million for unfair and deceptive practices; for a company that blew more than $80 billion dollars on a futile VR endeavor and is treating it like a write-off, $375 million is also too small to treat as pocket change. As two of the biggest empires of Digital Babylon, Meta and Google can take these kind of hits over and over again and not even blink. The scale of these companies is unfathomable, and verdicts like these do not hurt them in the slightest.

3. Given how these verdicts came down, plaintiffs with similar fact patterns can have good hopes for similar outcomes. While those outcomes are not guaranteed, the sheer volume of cases currently being filed and yet-to-be filed could prove more damaging to both companies than any monetary penalties themselves. Both companies have weathered tougher legal situations that this, but neither have had to deal with this many cases at once. The process is the punishment, and even with nigh-unlimited resources at your disposal, a swarm of hundreds of lawsuits could have a much greater impact than the verdict of any single case.

4. Both companies can survive without their social media products. Meta and Google both have diverse product portfolios and while losing their cash-cow social media products would leave a serious wound, both companies could recover. Admittedly, Google is in a stronger position here than Meta. Between its single-handed grip on Internet search, G-Suite line of software, and the countless Chromebooks created to run them, Google does not need YouTube to exist. Meta, with their quietly-growing success in pioneering a new field of hardware with their Ray-Ban smart glasses, is shoring up their ability to survive if one of their three platforms were lost to them. Again, the scale and complexity of these companies is truly incomprehensible. Especially in Meta’s case, while they deal in nothing less than social media, both deal in much more than social media alone.

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5. The critical argument in the California case was that Meta and Google were knowingly and negligently operating like the social media equivalent of Big Tobacco. The 1998 Master Settlement Agreement saw the nation come together to hold the four largest tobacco companies in the United States for many of the same actions Meta, Google and others take with social media, including knowingly targeting minors with a product designed for maximum addiction and burying information about known risks and dangers. The comparison is apt. Big Tobacco is itself a sub-entity of Babylon the Great and Meta and Google as representatives of Digital Babylon is no different. But, I think the comparison is flawed in ways I expect Meta and Google to both take advantage of. I’ll explain why in points 6-7.

6. Meta and Google want you to believe that you are powerless. They want you to believe you have no control or choice about whether you use their products. At one level, this is true. This Substack is called Passing Through Digital Babylon for a reason! But the Big Tobacco analogy concedes the very thing these companies want you believe: you couldn’t help it. You didn’t have a choice. You are helpless. You will do what we want. In both instances, the first lie they want you believe is that you are fundamentally incapable of saying “no” and paying the price that comes with it. Admittedly, that price is often steep. It is far higher and painful than most want to pay. But wanting to say “no” and being able to say no are two different things, and both Big Tobacco and Big Tech want you to believe you are not able to say “no” no matter how much you may want to say”no”.

7. The Big Tobacco comparison works for how Meta and Google are *acting*, but the differences in the *product* are significant. I may write more about that in a following piece. Where that differences matters here is 1) how both groups targeted minors and 2) the role parents played in giving their children an addictive product. Cigarettes are insidious because they are small, easy to give to children, and easy to hide from parents. A playground, bus stop, field trip; a child can get them quietly and easily without their parents knowing. In contrast, most children were willingly “exposed” to Instagram and YouTube *by their parents*. Who needs a D.A.R.E. program for social media when the call is coming from inside the house? Painting Meta and Google as an equivalent of Big Tobacco leaves their largest consumer base unscathed: the Millennial, Gen-X, and Boomer addicts who, while railing against how dangerous social media addiction is, are unwilling to practice what they preach. Just like the tobacco industry today, it can take a substantial hit among younger generations (although these trends are slowly starting to unravel) and still be incredibly lucrative by older generations who will take these addictions to their graves. Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube (and X, for that matter) stand to be no different.

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8. This verdict is more than enough for every school board across the country to enact Jonathan Haidt’s recommendations for smart phone use in public schools. To carry the Big Tobacco analogy further one more time: you wouldn’t let someone peddling cigarettes or other tobacco products set up shop on school property. Treat the phones like you would any other drug vector and kick them out.

9. It will likely take two or three years for the ramifications of this case, and all the other cases like it waiting in the wings, to play out. But if what is happening in Europe is any reliable indication, it is possible for the cure to be worse than the disease. Freya India–easily one of the best voices on the harms of social media on Gen Z (and I am very eager to read her upcoming book this summer)–recently warned in a piece for The Free Press that in Britain, her home country,

“the solutions being pushed by the state are causing a new kind of harm. . . . Meta should feel this heat; they deserve what’s coming. But I worry about what’s coming for us, too. Because if I’ve learned anything from years of writing about what’s happening to young people, it’s that everything can and will be capitalized on and exploited—especially a generation in crisis.”

Digital Babylon knows how to fight, and hard as it is to believe, the next theater of conflict may be worse than this one.

10. This is an important plank in building the legal and regulatory “floor” of the anti-smartphone and social media movement. There are more planks yet to be added and all the momentum is in this direction. But the point of building a floor is to support a ceiling. Supporters of this movement have a vision for what that ceiling is. The question remains whether other can catch that vision once the enthusiasm for building the floor has passed. The pro-life movement finally caught its white whale at the Supreme Court in 2022, and support for abortion is now the highest it’s ever been. Laws and court rulings are important. Changed hearts and a desire to live well in the world God has made is even more important.

11. Bonus: Zuckerberg was an idiot for trying to bring his Meta Ray-bans into the courtroom. That move will backfire on him spectacularly.

To be clear: I am happy at this verdict. It is correct and, like I said, a significant event regardless of what comes next. But it is one event, one victory, among other victories and defeats yet to come. Christians must be sober minded, rejoicing in what is worth celebrating in proportion to the bigger picture. In the rule of Digital Babylon, this is an important event. But the empires remain powerful, and the epoch of life on their glowing shores is not ending anytime soon.

Thanks for reading. As I put the finishing touches on this piece, we are waiting with baiting breath for the arrival of my daughter Miriam into the world. She is now four days late and my wife, Melissa, is very eager for her to get here. Please pray for a safe and smooth delivery for us. Regardless of when she arrives, I look forward to publishing something next week,

Remember: together, we are passing through Digital Babylon

Austin