In short
The episode covers two legal stories. First, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy for LGBTQ minors. In an 8-to-1 ruling, the Court said the law violated the First Amendment by discriminating based on viewpoint, treating therapists’ talk as protected speech rather than regulable medical practice. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented and read a summary from the bench. Key claims discussed: conversion therapy is harmful per major medical organizations, but the majority said government can’t impose an “orthodoxy of views”; the decision sends the case back for stricter review and likely undermines similar state laws.
Notable examples
the Alliance Defending Freedom represented the therapist; comparisons were made to other free-speech cases like the web designer refusing services to same-sex couples.
Guest
Suzanne Goldberg, Columbia Law School professor and director of the Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic.
Second, the episode turns to social media addiction litigation: a “landmark” state-court bellwether verdict ordered Meta and Google to pay $6 million to a 20-year-old woman.
Key claims
juries may be receptive (10-2), but it’s only one of three bellwethers; Section 230 is a major appeal issue; social media likely faces structural changes (e.g., autoplay/infinite scrolling) via courts and state laws.
Notable examples
punitive damages were discussed as potentially meaningful at scale; the case was compared to tobacco/opiates litigation.
Guest
Eric Goldman, Santa Clara University School of Law associate dean for research and internet law expert.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOSupreme Court's Ruling on Conversion Therapy
2:01 to 3:05
Discussion on the Supreme Court's decision to strike down conversion therapy bans in Colorado.
“The justices found the Colorado law infringes on her free speech rights by discriminating on the basis of viewpoint.”
Understanding the Court's Reasoning
3:06 to 4:04
Exploring the reasoning behind the court's decision regarding free speech rights.
“First, I want to affirm what you just said, that every major medical association says this kind of therapy to change somebody's sexual orientation or gender identity is harmful, especially to young people.”
Debate on Medical Regulation vs. Free Speech
4:05 to 5:59
Analyzing the conflicting views on whether conversion therapy should be regulated.
“And under our constitutional doctrine, whenever the government regulates speech, the court will impose its very highest level of review, its most skeptical scrutiny.”
Dissenting Opinions and Implications
6:00 to 7:42
Examining dissenting opinions and the implications of the ruling on medical practices.
“The court doesn't wrestle with that, neither the majority nor the concurring opinion of Justice Kagan.”
Future of Conversion Therapy Laws
7:43 to 9:08
What the ruling means for the future of conversion therapy laws across states.
“So the majority says that's what these medical associations think now.”
Broader Trends in Transgender Rights
9:09 to 12:16
Discussion on the broader implications of the court's decisions on transgender rights.
“Some of them are worded differently, so they may be evaluated somewhat differently.”
Challenges in Transgender Sports Legislation
14:06 to 15:02
Explore the complexities of legal arguments surrounding transgender athletes in sports.
“Interestingly, the sports case is not a religious freedom case.”
Analyzing the Landmark Social Media Addiction Verdict
18:28 to 24:11
Delve into the implications and significance of the recent social media addiction verdict.
“The jury's verdict in the first social media addiction trial has been called a landmark verdict, a game changer.”
Future Implications of Social Media Regulation
24:11 to 28:00
Discuss how ongoing litigation and legislation may reshape social media operations.
“Complex, tough questions get posed to the first level of review, then the second level of review, and almost certainly a third level of review.”
Concerns Over Social Media Addiction Litigation
28:00 to 30:12
Explores the implications of lawsuits claiming social media is designed to addict users.
“But the plaintiff's basic argument doesn't rely on any specific design feature.”
Show all 13 chapters
Comparing Social Media Lawsuits to Tobacco Litigation
33:15 to 38:43
Discussing the comparison of social media addiction cases to tobacco litigation and its broader implications.
“Eric, you've said that it's the internet that's on trial here, not social media.”
Social Media's Role for Vulnerable Communities
38:44 to 42:01
Highlights how social media is essential for marginalized communities and the potential impact of restricting it.
“So the general presumption is that social media services are just evil, that everyone who uses them hates them, doesn't enjoy using them, wishes they could stop using them.”
Concerns About Social Media Regulation
42:01 to 42:30
Explore the skepticism surrounding potential social media regulations from Congress.
“towards social media, such a desire for some kind of regulatory magic wand that will make life better.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Being a small business owner isn't just a career, it's a calling. Chase for Business knows how much heart and effort go into building something of your own. Manage all your business finances, from banking to payments to credit cards, all in one place with Chase's digital tools. Plus, access online resources designed to help your business thrive. Learn more at chase.com slash business. Chase for Business. Make more of what's yours. The Chase mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply. JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A. Member FDIC. Copyright 2026. JPMorgan Chase and Company.
0:35So there's a lot of noise about AI, but time's too tight for more promises. So let's talk about results. At IBM, we work with our employees to integrate technology right into the systems they need. Now, a global workforce of 300 ,000 can use AI to fill their HR questions, resolving 94 % of common questions. Not noise. Proof of how we can help companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business, IBM. Find home wherever you roam at Sonesta ES and Simply Suites, where longer stays feel comfortable, flexible, and easy.
1:13Stretch out and enjoy spacious accommodations and home-like amenities designed to help you settle in and stay productive or relaxed for however long you need. And when you're a Sonesta Travel Pass member, staying at Sonesta ES and Simply Suites means earning points toward free nights, upgrades, and more with every eligible stay. Go to Sonesta.com to book your stay and unlock the best rates with Sonesta Travel Pass. Here today, Rome tomorrow. Join now at Sonesta.com. Terms and conditions apply. This is Bloomberg Law with June Grosso from Bloomberg Radio. The Supreme Court ruled against a law banning conversion therapy for LGBTQ kids in Colorado.
1:59In an 8-to-1 ruling, the court sided with a Christian counselor who says she has a constitutional right to engage in talk therapy to try to change a child's sexual orientation or gender identity. The justices found the Colorado law infringes on her free speech rights by discriminating on the basis of viewpoint. Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only dissenter, and she took the unusual step of reading a summary of her opinion from the bench to emphasize her disagreement with the rest of the justices. The ruling casts doubt on similar laws in more than half the states. Laws in about half the states.
2:42My guest is Columbia Law School professor Suzanne Goldberg. She's the director of the Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic. Conversion therapy is rejected by every major medical and mental health organization, yet the Supreme Court in this 8-to-1 decision finds that Colorado's ban is a violation of free speech rights. Can you explain their reasoning? First, I want to affirm what you just said, that every major medical association says this kind of therapy to change somebody's sexual orientation or gender identity is harmful, especially to young people. And so the court says, even though that may be the case, Colorado cannot regulate what talk therapists say to their young patients because those therapists have a First Amendment free speech right.
3:35In other words, the government of Colorado cannot, through regulating provision of medical care or health care, say you can't say these things, even though we know and there's evidence that they're harmful. The AG of Colorado defended the law saying states have long regulated medical practices, including treatments carried out through speech to protect patients from substandard care. So why doesn't this law fit under the state regulating mental health professionals? So the court says this is speech. It's pure speech. And under our constitutional doctrine, whenever the government regulates speech, the court will impose its very highest level of review, its most skeptical scrutiny.
4:20And it says in this case, the lower court made a mistake by applying a lower level of review and treating this as regular medical regulation. And Ketanji Brown Jackson, in her dissent, says, yes, this is actually medical regulation. This is totally within the bounds of what a state can do to protect patients against substandard care. It's as though the two sides are really talking past each other. And one of the concerns is how will this interfere with the state's ability to protect patients from what health care providers have to say to them. I don't think it came as any surprise that the six conservatives voted as they did.
5:00But it was surprising to me that the two liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, voted against the law. How did they explain that in the concurrence? They take the same position that this is regulation of speech, and it's regulation of speech based on the viewpoint of the speaker, meaning a speaker can say, I affirm that you're LGBT, whatever the young person is, but the speaker, the therapist cannot say, I don't affirm that and you should change. And so that is, Justice Kagan writes, viewpoint discrimination. And the court has long subjected viewpoint discrimination to its most skeptical kind of scrutiny.
5:48That said, there are many things that the state presumably can regulate and prohibit a medical provider from saying to a patient. One of those examples is, you know, a state should be able to prohibit a provider from encouraging a suicidal patient to take their own life. That is also speech. The court doesn't wrestle with that, neither the majority nor the concurring opinion of Justice Kagan. Justice Jackson felt so strongly that she read a summary of her opinion from the bench to emphasize her objection here. But it's often the three liberal justices who are in the dissent in cases like this involving transgender rights.
6:30Why do you think Kagan and Sotomayor didn't join her? This is a difficult case in the sense that it is government regulation of speech. All nine of them agree on that. Justice Jackson says, yes, it's regulation of speech, but incidental to regulation of health care provision. Justices Kagan and Sotomayor stay with the majority, making this an 8-1 ruling. Again, I think they try to pull back a little bit from some of the majority's full-on, we can never regulate speech. And they suggest that this is quite a narrow ruling. But I think we'll have to see. I mean, I do think there are always concerns when allowing government to regulate speech that the government will regulate too much and suppress speech.
7:18And that is clearly something that Justice Kagan is attuned to as well as the majority. But so is Justice Jackson. They just see it differently. Do the majority deal with the fact that conversion therapy is opposed by every major medical organization and studies have linked it to depression, post-traumatic stress, and higher rates of suicide? So the majority says that's what these medical associations think now. But the government is not allowed to prescribe an orthodoxy of views. And it's standard, again, in First Amendment to say that the reason we are so protective of speech is to allow for the contestation of ideas, to allow that maybe at one point our views are mistaken and we want to change them.
8:06And they make the point that, well, you know, some years ago, states might have said you cannot support a young person who says they're lesbian or gay or bisexual or transgender. you have to tell them to change. And so the majority says, you know, that could happen. We can't allow any of this. That said, there remains this question whether governments can protect young patients who are facing a demonstrable risk, empirically validated, if this kind of therapy is used on them. And so it seems to me the majority does not actually wrestle fully with that question. The court is sending the case back to the lower court to apply a stricter standard.
8:53But is it an almost foregone conclusion that the law won't pass a strict scrutiny test? I never like to say anything is absolutely foregone, but I don't think anybody expects this law to survive. And of course, more than half the states in this country have this kind of law or similar laws. Some of them are worded differently, so they may be evaluated somewhat differently. And it's important to also know that virtually all of these laws were passed with bipartisan support, right? The evidence isn't in question here from any major or non-fringe analyst of the data. What's also important to know is that this ruling, strong as it is in favor of the therapist who says she might want to kind of provide this kind of therapy, does not say conversion therapy is good.
9:48It does not say conversion therapy is helpful to patients. It doesn't disagree with the medical association saying conversion therapy is harmful. And so people, young people who suffer as a result of conversion therapy can still file medical malpractice lawsuits and consumer fraud lawsuits and obtain a remedy. What states have been trying to do with these laws is prevent the harm in the first place. And the Supreme Court has just taken away states' capacity to do that in many respects. In this case, Colorado hasn't sought to enforce this law. And it sort of reminds me of the Supreme Court case where the web designer said she didn't want to design for same-sex couples.
10:34And yet, no same-sex couple had ever asked her to do a web design. So why is the Supreme Court taking these cases where no one's been injured, no one's been harmed? There are at least two responses to your wise question. The first is that when the First Amendment is at issue, when people's free speech rights might be chilled, which was the argument here, the court is more willing to take a case that is hypothetical, as you just said, right? that Colorado hasn't enforced the law. She hasn't been in any trouble with the law. So this is really, you know, a step outside of that kind of hypothetical we might offer in a law school classroom.
11:16It's not a real case yet. But when somebody makes an argument that their speech is being chilled by the government regulation, that kind of argument is typically allowed to go forward for good reason, right? You know, government can chill speech, and we don't want people also have to wait to face criminal punishment or fines before they engage in their speech. There's a second point, though, too, to your question, like, why are we seeing these cases, right? Why are people bringing cases when they haven't faced the problem, when they haven't not only gotten in trouble, they haven't even, in the case of the web designer, offered the services, and neither did Ms.
11:56Childs. And there, I think we can see that this is part of a broader agenda on the part of legal organizations to find plaintiffs who are willing to make these claims with a goal of pushing the law in a direction that really restricts the kind of legal protections for LGBT people. Yeah, the therapist was represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal group that has been behind some of these high profile cases, including overturning the constitutional right to abortion. Let's take a broad view for a minute. The Supreme Court has been consistently ruling against transgender rights in recent years.
12:39It upheld the Tennessee law barring gender-affirming care for transgender youth. It allowed Trump to ban transgender people from the military and to require new passports to reflect the sex on the holder's birth certificate. there was the decision allowing parents to opt out when LGBTQ storybooks were read in classrooms. And if the oral arguments are any indication, the court is likely to uphold state laws banning transgender girls and women from competing on female athletic teams. It just seems relentless. It's one case after another. I think it certainly does have a relentless feel. And when you couple this most recent series of rulings with the more than a thousand bills that have been introduced in state legislatures around the country to restrict transgender people in the daily activities of living and identity documents like a driver's license that looks like you or access to a bathroom or ability to get a passport that reflects identity.
13:47There are so many restrictions. So what can we say? Many of these cutbacks on protection for transgender people are coming in the guise of free speech or protecting the religious freedom of people who don't want to be around transgender people or don't want their kids to hear stories about transgender people or lesbian and gay people in that case. Interestingly, the sports case is not a religious freedom case. It's not a First Amendment case. There, the question is, what is the scope of sex discrimination law? Does it protect all athletes who are female to be able to participate in girls and women's sports?
14:27Certainly, the majorities appear quite skeptical of the athletes' arguments in those cases, the transgender athletes' arguments in those cases, and the states' arguments. So we'll see. But it's a very challenging time. On the other hand, there are also a number of states that are trying to really protect and affirm their transgender youth to make sure that they have healthy places to go to school, access to health care. But the concern is, of course, that the Trump administration right now is trying to cut that off as well. It's challenging, to say the least. Thanks so much, Suzanne. That's Professor Suzanne Goldberg of Columbia Law School.
15:06Coming up next, we'll take a look at the implications of the first verdict in a social media addiction trial. I'm June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg. Support for the show comes from Public. Public is an investing platform that offers access to stocks, options, bonds and crypto. And they've also integrated AI with tools that can assist investors in building customized portfolios. One of these tools is called Generated Assets. It allows you to turn your ideas into investable indexes. So let's say you're interested in something specific like biotech companies with high R &D spend, small cap stocks with improving operating margins, or the S &P 500 minus high debt companies.
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18:21Message and data rates may apply. JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A. Member FDIC. Copyright 2026. JPMorgan Chase and Company. The jury's verdict in the first social media addiction trial has been called a landmark verdict, a game changer. A jury ordered Mehta and Google to pay$6 million to a 20-year-old woman who said her addiction to social media caused her mental health struggles. But it's just the first trial in a very long line of similar cases, plus the company's appeals are ahead. The verdict may be a potential crack in the social media company's shield from legal responsibility for what happens on their platforms, but it doesn't put them in the same category as big tobacco or opioid makers, at least not yet.
19:14My guest is an expert in internet law, Professor Eric Goldman, Associate Dean for Research at Santa Clara University School of Law. This verdict is being described as landmark. The plaintiff's attorney called it a game changer, a turning point. What's your take on the import of this? The state court has set up three bellwether trials. The idea is to take the hundreds of cases that are currently filed and pick three that will give the parties better information about how juries are responding to the arguments. We got a verdict in the first of the three bellwether trials, but it's only one of the three.
19:56And in that respect, it's only one of the potential hundreds of cases that are out there. So it's a little hard to put too much weight in the single data point about how the juries are responding. It's not meant to be the answer to all the questions. Having said that, it does answer perhaps the most important question the plaintiffs needed to know, which is, are juries buying the basic arguments they're making? Do they generally believe social media services should be responsible for their users' harms? The jury answered yes. If that is the answer that will continue in the other trials, then that does change the state of play quite a bit.
20:33The plaintiffs didn't win over all the jurors. It was 10 to 2 with two jurors holding out for the companies on all the questions. And it took nine days to reach the verdict. And I assume that this is one of the plaintiffs' best cases because they chose it to go first. So does that leave room for different decisions in the other cases coming up? Just to clarify, I don't know that I would consider this to be the plaintiff's best case. I don't think that's exactly how they selected the bellwether trials. It's more designed to be a representative case. But having said that, the fact that it was 10-2 is, I think, actually quite significant.
21:10Despite many days of deliberation, there were two jurors who just didn't buy the plaintiff's basic argument could not be swayed by the remainder of the majority. And one could imagine with a different set of facts, a different presentation of the arguments by the litigants, and possibly a different jury composition, that a different jury might reach a different conclusion in another case. It's not like this is so obviously, unanimously a basis for imposing liability. So that's part of the whole point of doing the bellwether process is to have several trials and not rely on any single data point as dispositive.
21:49But it also is a sign, combined with a New Mexico jury verdict that came out near the same time, that maybe juries will buy this, maybe not unanimously, but in general are sympathetic to the plaintiff's argument. So I wouldn't put too much stock in the 10-2 verdict, but it does suggest that this is not a definitive slam-dunk case for the plaintiffs. Also, punitive damage is, as you know, meant to punish the company. And we've seen crazy punitives in cases over the years, really high punitives. Here,$3 million seems like a slap on the wrist to these companies. It won't even register in their balance sheet.
22:26It's a little hard to contextualize the number because, as you note, $6 million is a rounding error for Google and Meta. That number itself doesn't matter to them. But the point is that this is the first of what could be potentially thousands of cases. And so we have to multiply the$6 million number by potentially thousands of other claims, at which point that number becomes very large, a number that even Meta and Google will notice. So I don't feel like the$6 million number is at all a low number. It may be less than the plaintiff requested in this case, but as a signal of the industry's potential financial exposure, six million times the potential number of victims equals a lot of money, maybe even more than the entire industry has.
23:15So the social media companies say they'll appeal, obviously. Do they have good grounds, what you'd consider good grounds for appeal? I do think that there's some important issues that the appellate court will have to weigh in on. The trial court and the state court case, as well as federal case, have made a number of choices that were not obvious, that in some ways broke new ground. And as a result, I don't really treat them as the final word on the matter until we hear from other judges, appellate judges, if they actually even agree with those decisions. So I think that there are several bases on which the defendants have good grounds for appeal.
23:55But that doesn't mean that the appeal is likely to succeed. I kind of rate it like a 50-50. I can't really predict. The crystal ball is unclear. I think that there's good grounds for appeal. I think that the plaintiffs have some precedent to support them, even if I disagree with the conclusions they reach. And so, you know, this is exactly how the judicial system is supposed to work. Complex, tough questions get posed to the first level of review, then the second level of review, and almost certainly a third level of review. There will be a lot of eyeballs on these questions to answer the tough ones.
24:26Do you think one of the grounds for appeal will be based on Section 230 that generally immunizes online platforms for liability for user-generated content? I think that Section 230 is one of the solid grounds for appeal in this case. Essentially, the plaintiffs have had to argue that they're not suing over the content that any individual victim was exposed to, but the way in which that content was delivered, the various design features that help get the content in front of the victim. To me, that line between the content and the method of presentation of the content is illusory. They're all the same thing in my mind.
25:07They're all part of the general publication or editorial decisions that the service made about how to best engage with its users. So from my perspective, that effort to navigate around what is third-party content and what is a service's first-party design choices, really sophisticated, nuanced arguments, but they're not clear to me at all that the trial court got it right. So do you think that this will lead social media companies to change the way they operate? I think that it would be remarkable if social media doesn't change substantially over the next few years. If the final outcome in a few years from now is that social media has retained the status quo it has today, I think that would be remarkable.
25:52And it's not just because of the litigation, though, if the plaintiffs win any part of litigation, almost certainly the court will order changes to the service or any settlement agreement would require changes to the services. But the reason why I'm so confident that social media is under extraordinary pressure to change is because in addition to the litigation, state legislatures throughout the country are passing laws that are requiring structural and tactical changes to how the services operate. And unless the services can also overturn all of those laws, those laws are actually the governing rules that will dictate how social media services operate.
26:33So as a practical matter, the litigation is only one path towards change. The legislation is another path towards change. And of course, the services retain the voluntary right to make additional changes. I think it would be foolhardy on the part of any of your listeners to assume that the social media services they have today, whether they love them or hate them, is going to be the social media services they have in a few years from now. And we should talk about what that means for all of us, because we're not in the courtroom to express what we want from social media. But our fates, our ability to use the services is being dictated right now in courts and in the legislatures around the country.
27:12Will it be the social media companies putting in safeguards, age verification, parental control, or will they have to change what the jury found were addictive features? All of the above and possibly more. In other words, the litigation puts in play a number of very specific tactical choices that the services have made. Things like autoplay or infinite scrolling or algorithmic personalization. These are tactical changes that might need to be changed in order to avoid the liability going forward. All of those features are also being regulated by the legislatures who are saying you cannot have infinite scrolling, you cannot have autoplay, and so on.
27:56So either way, one way or another, those services are going to have to evaluate the functions that they have. But the plaintiff's basic argument doesn't rely on any specific design feature. The basic argument is the way in which you design the service overall was intended to addict your users and cause them harm. And to the extent that that general statement becomes part of the law, whether in legislation or litigation, we could get there either way, then the services have to review everything that they do and consider how that might impact potential victims. As a result, there's no limit or boundary to what structural changes could be forced through the legislation or the litigation.
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28:39In either case, everything is in play. And that's why, again, I'm so concerned and or confident that social media services will not look the same in a few years from now. If the addictive features are changed, does that mean that the value to advertisers changes as well? The short answer is we don't know how the changes to any particular product features will affect the revenue or profits of the services. And I think it's actually impossible to model. There is some set of secret sauce that drives user engagement in social media, and it might be that small changes to that secret sauce or changes that don't relate to the secret sauce have no impact on the bottom line.
29:23It is also possible that even the smallest change might have dramatic impact on the bottom line and really change the value proposition for the services, how they structure their offerings and how they are able to profit from them. So the short answer is we don't really know how any of the particular conversations that are taking place could impact the bottom line. We do know that in the end, If the plaintiff's lawyers or the legislators have absolute power to dictate over whether or not something is going to cause victims harm, I don't know that there is a profitable model at that point. In other words, at that point, the services can no longer design their offerings for their customers.
30:03Somebody else external to the conversation is going to come in and dictate how that will work. And if so, the niche becomes much less lucrative, maybe not even profitable. Coming up next on the Bloomberg Law Show, I'll continue this conversation with Professor Eric Goldman of Santa Clara University School of Law. What about the impact of any changes in social media on the communities that don't have a voice at trial? I'm June Grosso, and you're listening to Bloomberg. Support for the show comes from Public. Lately, it feels like there are two types of investing platforms. Some are traditional brokerages that haven't changed much in decades, and others feel less like investing and more like a game.
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32:37Looking for tips and advice? Their online resources are always available to give you the solutions you need to help your business thrive. See how your business can get stronger and go farther with Chase for Business. Learn more at chase.com slash business. Chase for Business. Make more of what's yours. The Chase mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply. JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A. Member FDIC. Copyright 2026. JPMorgan Chase and Company. I've been talking to internet law expert Professor Eric Goldman of Santa Clara University Law School about the implications of the verdict against Meta and Google in the first social media addiction trial.
33:20Eric, you've said that it's the internet that's on trial here, not social media. Explain what you mean by that. In addition to the lawsuits against social media services, the plaintiff's lawyers have taken the same basic legal paradigms that they're advancing in those cases and advanced them against other parts of the internet. I'll mention three, although it's not limited to these three, generative AI model makers, video game makers, and social gaming. In all three of those cases, the plaintiffs are essentially arguing that the services are designed to addict users, that addiction causes harm, and therefore the services should be liable for the resulting harm.
34:00The same exact set of arguments in the social media addiction cases. So if the arguments work in social media addiction, they will be advanced and have a greater degree of likelihood of succeeding against these other major segments of the Internet. And in fact, if the arguments work, there's no segment of the internet that couldn't be potentially susceptible to the exact same arguments. That some function on the internet is designed to addict users, it causes harm, they should be financially responsible. So if the arguments work in social media addiction, they will be potentially more successful everywhere else on the internet.
34:38And that could dramatically change not just social media, but the entire internet. And that's why the stakes are so high for these bellwether trials. They're giving us a prediction of how likely that reshaping of the Internet is. Lexi Hazam, one of the lead attorneys representing plaintiffs and school districts in similar cases, said, we have the wind at our backs going into the next trials, and these companies are under a lot of pressure. I mean, does one trial affect the next trial? It doesn't. And that's, in fact, the whole nature of the bellwether trials is to do basically a statistical sampling of the entire corpus of claims and try to get a sense about how to value that entire corpus based on some independently chosen data points.
35:22So the plaintiffs are, I think, excited because their arguments worked and that gives them more confidence that the arguments are going to work in the next case. But they're independent, and it is highly possible that the next trial will reach a completely different result, maybe massive liability, far beyond$6 million, or maybe$0 or no liability at all. That's the whole point of sampling the different cases. Now, having said that, each side has now heard the other side's best evidence, and they're going to iterate. Both sides will change their messaging to try to reach a different outcome or a better outcome for them.
35:57So the plaintiff's lawyers may be feeling confident that having seen the best evidence of the defendants, they have a better sense about how they can even overcome it more. And that may be giving them some confidence as well. The social media cases are being compared to the tobacco litigation with the global settlement and the opioid litigation. Do you see a direct comparison? Yes and no. So let me reject the analogy, but then I'll come back to how there's some kernel of truth to it. So in general, I'll start with something like tobacco. Tobacco has no known health benefits to its consumers. It's only either neutral to their health or it's negative.
36:40Whereas with social media, we know that it has substantial benefits to its users, in addition to some users deriving potentially significant detriments from it. And so trying to take the regulation or the legal treatment of something that has no known health benefits to something that has substantial benefits that need to be accommodated and accounted for, I just think it's like apples and oranges. I also think that's not an apt comparison because cigarettes are a physical space problem that causes physical harm, causes health harm to its consumers, whereas social media is an intangible venue for publishing content.
37:19And trying to draw analogies between offline physical space items to online and tangible items, including the publication of content, which gets special constitutional protection, I just think it's an apt. Now, the reason why the big tobacco analogy might be relevant is first because both sides are approaching this as if it is a litigation war. And normally when you think about people litigating against big giants like Google or Meta, you just assume that the plaintiffs are going to be outgunned financially or in terms of their legal expertise. But that's not the case at all here. You have an extraordinarily well-funded group of plaintiffs who have spared no expense at trying to get to successful outcomes.
38:01Just like in big tobacco, the amount of money on both sides was extraordinary. And that's true here as well. This case is going to be litigated to the very nth degree by both sides. There's no imbalance in the power relationship there. The other reason why it could be like the big tobacco cases is because it could change the industry. It is possible that social media as an industry will look different at the end of this litigation, just like the tobacco industry looked different at the end of the big tobacco litigation. So in that sense, the stakes are super high. And I can see the analogy on that front.
38:35And you mentioned before that any changes in social media will affect other communities who don't have a voice at trial. Can you tell me more about that? So the general presumption is that social media services are just evil, that everyone who uses them hates them, doesn't enjoy using them, wishes they could stop using them. And that's just not true. There are so many communities that derive really substantial, life-affirming benefits from social media. I'm just going to mention a few. The first is the LGBTQ community. Social media has proven to be a lifeline for many members of that community who do not have a good physical space network or who are afraid to access it because of safety or other concerns.
39:20And social media has created a space where the members of that community can learn from each other, engage with each other, and help understand their lives and the needs that they have. Taking away social media or restricting their access will materially harm the LGBTQ community. Another community that derives substantial benefits in social media is the neurodiverse community, who sometimes struggle in communicating in physical space, given the particular ways in which their minds work. Social media provides them a different form of outlet, a different way of expressing themselves, and taking away social media, restricting their access to social media will materially harm the neurodiverse community who cannot necessarily transfer all of their social engagement to other forms of conversations.
40:07And the third I'll mention are people who have rare diseases. And I'll give a personal example. My wife has a lung cancer diagnosis of a specific mutation of which there are about maybe 6 ,000 Americans who have it. And that community is so spread out throughout the country that it cannot form a geographically based conversation. The only way that they can find each other and group together is online through social media. And the group that my wife's community has formed has met material benefits for the members of that community. It has helped them improve their lives and in some cases lengthen their lives because the fact that they could converse and organize on social media.
40:46So restricting or taking away access to that community will materially be a detriment to that entire community. You talked about state laws, but what about Congress? Do you think that these verdicts can move Congress to act? It's a little hard to predict what Congress is going to do. Congress is already dysfunctional. The 2026 midterm elections might make it even more difficult for things to move in Congress. Having said that, the jury verdict has given a lot of extra wind in the sails of the regulators who believe that they have a responsibility to protect users of social media from the efforts of Google and Meta.
41:27So the jury vertices are already being pointed to as a motivation for moving additional regulation forward. That's going to happen at both the state and the federal level. Will it be enough to get something through Congress? I don't know, but I should warn your listeners that we should be nervous about whatever will make it through Congress. We should not assume that Congress cares about actually benefiting us as constituents in regulating social media. And we should not assume that any outcome of that regulatory process will actually, in fact, make our lives better. And so I know there's such an antipathy towards social media, such a desire for some kind of regulatory magic wand that will make life better.
42:09But that's not at all what we're likely to get from Congress. And as a result, I encourage your listeners to be vigilant here. Congress, if it acts, might be doing something in the name of trying to advance these interests, but actually with a very different agenda that is not necessarily in the interest of its constituents. Well, watch what, if anything, happens in Congress. Thanks so much, Eric. That's Professor Eric Goldman of Santa Clara University Law School. And that's it for this edition of the Bloomberg Law Show. Remember, you can always get the latest legal news on our Bloomberg Law Podcast.
42:42You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at www.bloomberg.com slash podcast slash law. And remember to tune into the Bloomberg Law Show every weeknight at 10 p.m. Wall Street time. I'm June Grosso, and you're listening to Bloomberg.
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From the publisher
Columbia Law School Professor Suzanne Goldberg, Director of the Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic, discusses the Supreme Court rejecting Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy for LGBTQ minors. Professor Eric Goldman, Associate Dean for Research at Santa Clara University School of Law and an expert in internet law, discusses the consequences of the verdict against Meta and Google in the first social media addiction trial. June Grasso hosts.
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