The lawyer who took on Meta – and won

9:20Mark Lanier:He's extremely clear. He makes things very simple. And when you're talking to him, it's easy to see how he could convince a jury that this is a very straightforward, simple case of good versus evil.

9:32Kaley:So let's get to this huge, very high profile trial. The case against Meta, TikTok, Snap, app and the owner of YouTube, Google. The plaintiff, which is the person suing these companies, was a young woman called Kayleigh. Can you tell me a bit about her?

9:48Mark Lanier:Kayleigh's 20 years old now. She comes from a family where she has two older siblings, single mother brought them up. They don't have a lot of disposable income. She has some learning disabilities. And from a very early age, she was using YouTube. It began with YouTube. from the age of about seven. And then from about nine, she was on Instagram. Almost as soon as she started using Instagram, she was playing with filters, changing the shape of her nose and her eyes. She became a very heavy user of Instagram. There was one 24-hour period where she was on Instagram for 16 hours. And she said the use of Instagram meant that when she looked in the mirror and saw her face without filters, she just thought she was disgusting.

10:37Mark Lanier:She started to self-harm. She was later diagnosed with body dysmorphic disorder and depression. And she wasn't sleeping because she was using these platforms so much. So the profile of an addict. Totally of an addict. She told me that if she was walking past a lake, a body of water, she would just be terrified that she might drop her phone and lose her phone and wouldn't be able to go online. And as much as her mother tried to stop her from using it, locking her phone away, putting time limits on her phone. Kayleigh would find the phone or plead, beg and plead with her mother, or she would find a way of getting hold of other phones.

11:16Mark Lanier:She got hold of a phone that used to belong to her older sister and reinstalled Instagram on that.

11:21Kaley:So how did Mark Lanier come to represent Kayleigh and why her? Because I imagine there are so many families so desperate to get their children help from, you know, as they see it, the harms that

11:32Mark Lanier:social media is causing them. In these trailblazing cases, they're looking for somebody who has a good chance of winning. And I think Kayleigh was identified as that because she had this documented history of diagnosis for her mental health conditions and that being directly related to her social media use.

11:50Kaley:So there'd be medical notes that would have said that she is addicted to this.

11:54Mark Lanier:There would have been medical notes documenting her compulsive behaviour with social media. Her mother wanted her to bring the case. It wasn't her idea. She was frightened of bringing the case, not because of the scrutiny and the exposure, but because she thought that she would be thrown off social media by these companies. And she was terrified of that. And that has happened. She said Snapchat have closed her account.

12:24Kaley:To Los Angeles now, where a landmark trial kicks off today, Executives, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, are expected to take the stand. Mark Lanier gets involved in this case against Meta and Google, TikTok and Snap, and the latter two actually end up settling outside of court. This case wasn't about the content these companies are publishing, because they're not publishers, as they say. It's about accusing them of intentionally designing their social media to be addictive. The trial begins. It's a huge moment. Lanier is facing dozens of lawyers on the opposing bench. How did he prepare for this moment?

12:59Mark Lanier:Mark Lanier told me that these cases are lost or won on several fronts. The defendants and the plaintiffs. Who does the jury like better? Is it Kayleigh on one side or Metta and Google on the other? The evidence matters. Which documents does the jury find more compelling? The lawyers, which side does the jury warm to most? But he said in this case, there was also the battleground of AI. and he knew that Meta and Google, who have their own AIs, Gemini and Meta AI, that they were going to be using the full force of AI to win this case. So he said to me, I knew that we had to have our own AI and it had to be a better one.

13:36Mark Lanier:Better than Google and Meta? Yes. So they commissioned a company to create a bespoke AI for Mark Lanier and his team, which incorporated bits of Gemini and Claude and ChatGPT and Meta. And when he told me that, I said, OK, well, you know, how did you use it? And he said, we used it in 30 different ways. I'll give you just one. And he said to me that when they do jury selection, the jury is anonymous. But when they're selecting the jury, they ask the jurors all sorts of questions.

14:04Kaley:We have questionnaires they filled out that tell us their age, their gender, their occupational history, their family.

14:14Mark Lanier:They know the jurors' opinions. What do they think of this or that on a scale of one to 10? How do you feel about this? How do you feel about that? Because they fill out a questionnaire. Because they fill out several questionnaires. And he said that using this data, they created a psychological and emotional exemplar of each of the 12 jurors.

14:34Kaley:So 12 AI profiles.

14:35Mark Lanier:12 AI profiles, a kind of virtual shadow jury. So you could try out your arguments on the kind of virtual jurors that you, yes. Oh my God, that's amazing. at the end of each day. And every day he would feed the court transcripts into his AI and be able to ask questions. What did juror number three think about this? Where did juror number five get confused? What does juror number 12 need better explained? And he would be practicing on this AI jury, which is just extraordinary. And also for me, it's clever because whilst it might seem kind of sci-fi, it is ultimately a human jury that's making the decision there is still human agency there it was just allowing him to kind of sharpen up and in fact when he said that to me I thought I wonder if he's put me through his AI because he seemed to know me so well before I turned up I thought

15:28Kaley:I wonder if he's he's already he's gaming out a jury Jenny yeah he's probably gaming out the journalist too yes incredible and when it comes to I don't want to call them courtroom tricks but the magic that Lanier spun in court I mean can you tell me a bit more about the methods

15:45Mark Lanier:Mark Lanier likes a theatrical stunt. In his opening statement, he turned up with wooden blocks, wooden kids ABC blocks, and he said, this is as simple as addicting the brains of children. ABC? ABC, and he said he wants the jury to remember that top line, addicting the brains of children.

16:03Kaley:You always want to make something memorable, and you always want to make something simple. There's a principle in psychology and learning called cognitive ease, We automatically assign credibility to the things we better and more easily understand. So what could be easier than the ABCs? So one of the ways Mark Lanier set out to prove that Meta and Google had designed their platform to addict the brains of children was through their own documents that he had access to through the discovery period. There were mountains of these internal documents. What did Mark Lanier learn from them?

16:41Mark Lanier:Google and Meta had internal documents showing that they had deliberately sought out casino science. So things that keep people constantly pulling the handle on slot machines in the quest of a jackpot that may never arrive, that they use intermittent variable rewards, giving you little nuggets of things that make your neurons fire to keep you on there.

17:04Kaley:The casinos realise that they'll give you periodically surprise rewards. you'll stick around and wait for them the same principle is used in the algorithms for instagram and youtube and snapchat and tiktok you can scroll and then about every 10 or 11 or 12 you'll get something that really just wow and then they found an internal youtube document

17:29Mark Lanier:that said you know our goal is not viewership it is addiction you know it was explicit wow

17:34Kaley:Wow. Explicit.

17:35Mark Lanier:Casino science also, you know, suggests the house always wins. And that's what it said in that document, the house always wins. There were also internal documents from Meta, which showed that Meta had been certainly during the point in time when Kayleigh was a teenager, had been deliberately seeking out very young people to be part of the platform. There were documents that said if we want to get teens, we need to start with tweens, even though officially you weren't supposed to be using Instagram or Facebook until you were 13 years old.

18:04Kaley:They hijack the children's brains before they become adults. There's a reason that we don't let children smoke tobacco. There's a reason we don't let children go into a pub and order a pun. There's a reason we don't let children in the casinos gambling. You've got to be old enough to have some measure of self-control over this.

18:27Mark Lanier:Meta had a document where they openly discussed how vulnerable children who perhaps come from backgrounds without much disposable income or who are susceptible to mental health problems. Like Kayleigh's. Like Kayleigh, that their problems are exacerbated by use of the platform. So Mark Lanier was able to show that Meta knew that vulnerable children were being harmed by their products and yet didn't make any change to their products.

18:56Kaley:By their own admission, at least by the admission of the documents that they lay out in court, it was clear what Google and Meta were doing. How on earth did their lawyers encounter that? What was a defence they mounted? Their argument was Kayleigh might have problems,

19:12Mark Lanier:she might have body dysmorphia, depression and anxiety, but that these were things that would have happened to her anyway, regardless of her use of social media.

19:20Kaley:We do not believe that our platform is responsible for the teen mental health crisis in this country. We have, on the contrary, we think we've done a lot to try to protect kids and ensure that they have a... I guess one thing that Google and Meta had on their side in this case was that they were able to push the narrative that's already quite predominant, that this is the parents' fault. Yeah. Kayleigh's mother was to blame, and also Kayleigh should have taken some responsibility, etc. What did Mark Lanier have to say about that?

19:49Mark Lanier:They blamed bad parenting, chaotic home environment, and her learning difficulties for the mental health problems that she went on to have afterwards. What Mark Lanier had to prove was causation, the link between her use of social media and the mental health problems that she went on to have later. He said, of course, parenting comes into it, but it is completely naive to think that parents can stand up against the most aggressive, predatory form of capitalism the world has ever known.

20:18Kaley:To think that we have such awesome parents in this world, that they can stand up against the trillion dollar companies with their algorithms and their deceitful tools. And you're a parent and you're going to take them on all by yourself. Does parenting make a difference? Of course it does. Can parents beat the machine? No way.

20:44Mark Lanier:Your child will go to school. They will be on their lunch break with other kids whose parents haven't put controls on their phone. Kids hang out with other kids on the bus. No matter how many times you talk to your child or try and protect your child, you cannot give your child the necessary resilience to stand up against these companies.

21:10Kaley:Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg expected in a Los Angeles courtroom today as the tech giant seeks to fend off a massive lawsuit filed by families who say Zuckerberg and others... Jenny, a week after opening statements, the other Mark, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, walks into the court flanked by bodyguards and causes a real ruckus.

21:32Mark Lanier:What happened? He had an entourage that were bedecked in these meta Ray-Ban glasses. And you've got to imagine this. He's walking into court and he's walking past people whose children have killed themselves. And they say it's because of their use of his platforms. And his entourage is wearing these glasses. And at the time, people thought this is so tasteless. He's using this as an opportunity for product placement. But the prosecution immediately took a different view. They had fought hard for the jury to be anonymous. And if you go in with some meta glasses, potentially you're able to take photos of the jury and identify the jury.

22:09Mark Lanier:So they immediately had to stand up and appeal to the judge and say these people have to take their glasses off.

22:18Kaley:So after being chastised by the judge for the meta glasses, Zuckerberg takes to the stand.

22:24Mark Lanier:What did Mark Lanier have up his sleeve for him? The prosecution team, I think there were six of them, unrolled a giant 50-foot collage of all of the selfies that, not all of them, but some of the selfies that Kayleigh had posted to Instagram. These very heavily filtered selfies that Kayleigh had posted just to show how extreme her use of the platform had been. He said to Mark Zuckerberg on the stand, did you investigate Kayleigh's account for problematic use? And Mark Zuckerberg wasn't able to answer.

22:55Kaley:While on the stand, Zuckerberg consistently defended Meta. He said repeatedly that his company always had a goal for their product to be useful, and if it's useful, people will use it more. The plaintiff's attorney, Mark Lanier, replied, suggesting if it's addicting, people will also use it more. If the jury decides in this unprecedented case... Jenny, the trial was conducted over 43 hours, which, as I understand it, was a limit set by the judge, and it concluded in March earlier this year. And it wasn't just about Kayleigh. There was so much riding on whether Mark Lanier could prove that these companies were deliberately getting kids addicted to their platforms.

23:34Kaley:What did the jury decide?

23:36Mark Lanier:The jury found in Kayleigh's favour and awarded her a total of six million dollars.

23:43Kaley:The verdict was a finding of liability on all counts against both Meta and YouTube.

23:50Mark Lanier:Meta is going to pay 70 % of the bill. Google's going to put the rest of it. So it's a victory for Kayleigh.

23:58Kaley:And we've sent a message with this, that you will be held accountable for the features. Just because of the features alone that drive addiction, these companies can be held accountable.

24:12Mark Lanier:Google and Meta are appealing. Lanier told me he thinks this is going to take seven years, the appeals. Kayleigh's not going to get any money until all of that is done. But meanwhile, there are 2 ,000 other cases that are now being brought in the wake of Kayleigh's victory against Google and Meta.

24:31Kaley:Coming up. If governments won't, can juries take on the tech titans?

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25:51Kaley:Jenny, you also interviewed Kaylee for this piece. How is she doing now? She's doing all right. Does she still use social media?

25:59Mark Lanier:She still uses social media. She says she thinks she always will. My sense I got from speaking to her is that she's got an enormous sense of validation. She was known as KGM in court. There are people outside the court holding out placards saying we are KGM. and knowing that she's made a really big difference by being brave enough to go to court, have her mental health history and her personal life picked over by these incredibly powerful lawyers and win, that has made her feel a degree of self-worth which she needed. But I asked her, what does the future hold for you? And she said, I don't know.

26:38Mark Lanier:I have no idea.

26:39Kaley:Jenny, we know governments and regulators haven't done enough or aren't able to do much when it comes to tackling big tech and the harms that they've obviously caused. Do you think it is the likes of Mark Lanier and people bringing individual cases that is where the hope lies?

26:57Mark Lanier:I'm British and British people don't necessarily like the idea of suing litigation for money. There's something a bit grubby about asking for money.

27:07Kaley:I do have people who say to me all the time, we hate litigation. We hate the American court system. If there's a problem, let the government take care of it. And I want to say, really? Do you really trust the government?

27:19Mark Lanier:And I don't know if it's because Mark Lanier was a very, very oppressive man. But after two and a half hours in his company, I did feel like actually this is the way to redress the balance is by suing these people, these companies, because once they start realizing there are proper financial consequences with lots of people suing them, they will have to change their business practices.

27:43Kaley:If you've got a company where the decision makers are deliberately hurting people, somebody's got to hold them accountable. Politicians will never hold these people accountable. The only thing they beat up is a jury. Unless our governments really grow teeth and are prepared to really tackle the harms caused by the use of these platforms, I think perhaps the only way to get any justice or to fight back is through the courts. And what about for Mark Hanere? What's next for him?

28:15Mark Lanier:He's got many more cases. His next big target is Roblox. He's looking at how children fall victim to sexual predators and extortionists on Roblox. And his firm is bringing a case against OpenAI, who are the owners of ChatGPT, on behalf of some bereaved parents who say that their son was urged to take his own life by ChatGPT. So he's continuing to take on the tech titans.

28:49Wow.

28:50Kaley:Jenny, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for having me.

28:57Kaley:That was Jenny Kleeman. You can read her profile of Mark Lanier at TheGuardian.com. And that's it for today. This episode was presented by me, Noshi Nikbal. It was produced by Saskia Collette. Sound design is by Rudy Zagadlo. And the executive producer was Eli Block. And we'll be back this afternoon with the latest.

29:24Mark Lanier:This is The Guardian.

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