Meta面临各州诉讼：索赔1.4万亿美元，或改变社交媒体结构

This is Bloomberg Law with June Graasso from Bloomberg Radio.

It's the very definition of a highstakes trial. Dozens of state attorneys general are suing Meta, claiming it uses unprecedented technology to entice, engage, and ensnare teenagers and children, harming their mental health. At stake, a damages claim of 1.4 4 trillion, very close to the social media giants's market cap, plus the imposition of fundamental structural changes to the platform. The trial is the latest in an avalanche of lawsuits against Meta and other social media companies, including Google's YouTube, Tik Tok, and Snap over claims their platforms harm young people, illegally collect their data, and are deliberately designed to addict them.

My guest is an expert in internet law, Eric Goldman, a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law and co-director of the High-Tech Law Institute. Eric, this is a very high stakes trial. Tell us what's at stake here.

In this trial, the state attorneys general are pursuing the social media defendants for a number of claims, including claiming that they are a public nuisance. The state attorneys general have asked for $1.4 $4 trillion worth of damages, which if issued would represent a major chunk of the overall value that those entities are worth. The case also potentially puts in play structural remedies that would change how social media services operate.

So between the damages awards and the possibility of structural reform, it's possible that these cases will change social media structurally.

The state attorneys general are saying that Meta designed the platforms to get children and teenagers hooked. Tell us more about the allegations here.

There's a lot of allegations, so it's a little hard to summarize. You hinted at one of them. The state attorneys general are arguing that social media services were designed to be addictive. In fact, addicted the users and that addiction caused harm. They've also claimed, for example, that the social media services knew about that addictive attributes and harm and failed to disclose it to the public. And they're also claiming that the consequences of this addiction are harming society generally.

Obviously, Meta denies the allegations. what specifically has it said?

And I just want to point out uh that you keep using the term meta. There are multiple social media services in play here. So just want to make clear about that. The social media defendants are defending on a wide range of grounds. They're defending on the position that the claims that are being advanced against them simply don't fit the facts that what the social media services have done is not illegal and therefore there should be no remedy for it.

They have argued that the First Amendment applies to their decisions, that they're acting like publishers making editorial decisions, and basing liability on those editorial decisions is inconsistent with the First Amendment. And they're claiming that section 230 applies. Section 2 there says websites are liable for third party content. And a lot of the arguments about addiction are ultimately about the delivery of third party content. and therefore uh the social media defendants argue that section 230 should preempt those claims.

So I hear 7 weeks of trial. How do the state ages go about trying to prove their claim? Are we going to hear from individual, you know, teenagers? Are we going to hear from experts in social media? I mean, what kind of witnesses will they use? I think that they'll use a variety of different experts uh who will try to bolster the argument that the social media services engaged in addictive practices and in fact caused harm.

Both of those propositions are not scientifically established. The state ages will have to make a case for them. I would assume that we will hear from individual victims. We might also hear from former company employees who have inside information and maybe others.

So far, it seems like Meta hasn't fared well before juries. You had the case that we talked about before where in Los Angeles in state court, a jury awarded a woman $6 million in a case involving claims that Meta and Google's YouTube caused her anxiety and depression. And then we had this New Mexico jury which deliberating less than a day awarded $375 million in civil penalties. And then last week the judge added on a additional 567 million.

Is Meta on the losing end so far of all these trials?

The cases are not going well for Meta or for that matter for other social media defendants. The judges and the juries have generally looked disfavorably on the arguments that they're making. However, these cases are all going to go up on appeal and there's no reason to believe that the jury or judge verdicts are going to survive intact. There are a number of good arguments that the defendants will make on appeal. And if they can succeed on any one of those arguments, it's possible that some or all of the lower court rulings will be undone.

So I haven't put a lot of stock in where we stand today other than as data points. The juries are sending a message that they do hold social media services culpable for harming their users. Whether or not the law recognizes that harm and upholds the legal consequences that have been assigned to it remains to be seen on appeal.

Is the strongest argument on appeal that the social media platforms have had immunity from prosecution over the content that users post and states are trying to sidestep that by going after the product design features. I think there are several strong arguments that will be advanced on appeal in this case and in frankly all of the cases. Section 230 is one of those. Section 230 says that the services can't be responsible for third party content.

And ultimately given that their basic business is the delivery of third party content, section 23 clearly casts a long shadow. But I think the first amendment arguments are even more obvious and in some respects even more troubling. In the end, social media services are engaging in publication of content. Whether it's third party content or first party content, the First Amendment applies equally in that circumstance.

As a result, to the extent that social media defendants are being held legally liable for their editorial decisions, that sounds like a problem and that sounds like the kind of thing that an appella court will pay attention to.

The damages of $1.4 trillion. Meta's market cap is $1.5 trillion. I mean, where does that number come from?

The number might have a little bit of fiction to it. It might be a fantasy land computation, but it doesn't really matter if that number is the right number. It really is more the order of magnitude of the state attorney's general position. They are saying that if the social media services are causing as much or more damage as their market cap, they literally shouldn't exist. They're basically trying to drive the value of those companies to near zero.

And so that's why I think that the numbers so helpfully at crystallizing the stakes of this case. It's a reminder that the arguments that state agencies are advancing potentially make social media services untenable, not profitable, and maybe no longer a viable market.

They're also demanding changes besides this staggering sum. Are the changes to the platforms that the state agents are asking for, would they change, you know, the very essence of the way these companies, social media platforms work?

Unquestionably, the structural remedies that are being ordered by courts and also mandated by legislators will change how social media operates. What's less clear today is that they're going to change it in a way that will materially affect our willingness to use them. And I'm going to give you an example because I think it's so helpful. The New Mexico judge set a cap on the number of hours that a user could use the service in a month.

Now, that cap was prett