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- [00:05]
A
Good morning. Meta and Google suffer a major defeat in court.
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Hearing those answers from the jury, it's really been a complete validation of what we've been screaming on the top of Rubes about for years.
- [00:17]
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NPR explains what it could mean for social media companies. TSA lines reach their longest ever as the partial shutdown drags on. But are there any signs of a breakthrough? And late night TV host Stephen Colbert's got a new gig. And it's one no one predicted.
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I've got to finish a television show
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and I've got to write a movie
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script, but I will see you all in the shire.
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It's Thursday, March 26th. I'm Cecilia Ley and this is Apple News Today. It's been a tough day in court for Meta and Google. Yesterday they lost a case in LA that could have big ripple effects for how millions of children access platforms like Instagram and YouTube. But Bobby Allen is a correspondent for NPR who covered the trial.
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A woman from California who's now 20 years old, identified only as Kaylee or KGM, sued a host of social media companies, alleging that the companies designed social media apps to entice young people to get them hooked and to keep them there, and that that addiction led directly to mental health issues, including depression and anxiety. Body image issues.
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Kaylee said her issues began when she was 10 and that social media caused her to obsess about her appearance and withdraw from her family. She would spend up to 16 hours a day on Instagram and was diagnosed with body dysmorphia. The jury heard from tech executives, including Mark Zuckerberg, but ultimately they sided with her, concluding that they had built intentionally addictive platforms and awarded $6 million in damages. Kaylee's lawyer, Mark Lanier, described it as a righteous event.
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You know, if you're 35 years old and you get addicted to YouTube and Instagram, well, shame on you. But to take that preteen, to take that teenager whose mind is still developing, and to be fully aware of how you can use a casino effect on a young developing mind, that's outrageous.
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To back up their case, NPR's Allen told us that Kaylee's legal team presented internal communications for Meta that outright acknowledged teens and kids were being targeted.
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Instagram has a minimum age of 13. But lots of internal documents were surfaced over the course of this trial which illustrated that executives, including Mark Zuckerberg knew that hooking kids when they're preteens was critical to, to keeping them on the platform. And that was really important to sort of really bolstering the profits, Right. The bottom line of Meta. So they aggressively went after young people, designed their products to pull in young people. And that has led to a number of mental health issues, and specifically for this plaintiff, very severe mental health issues.
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This case is unique. For years, social media companies have been protected by a part of the 1996 Communications Decency act, which says tech companies aren't responsible for what users of their platform post on them. So Alan told us that attorneys for the plaintiff in this case took a different approach.
- [03:33]
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They are treating meta and treating YouTube as the manufacturers of defective products. So it's a product design case, and that's really unique and that's really novel. And this is the first verdict that has found, yes, social media can be treated as a defective product. And this federal legal shield that the industry has used for decades to fend off litigation might not be as impenetrable as we once thought.
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The companies argued that it wouldn't make business sense for them to create something bad for teens and kids on their platforms.
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The tech companies are saying adolescent mental health is complex, it's multifaceted. It cannot be blamed on one single app, that these companies do everything they can to ensure that young people have a safe experience on their apps, because if they didn't, they wouldn't return. When Mark Zuckerberg took the witness stand and I was in the courtroom and I was watching him testify, he said repeatedly, we have a business financial incentive to make sure that young people have a good time when they're scrolling on Instagram.
- [04:36]
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Both companies said they didn't agree with the outcome and will appeal. The Wednesday ruling had come on the heels of another loss for Meta just the day before in a similar case. On Tuesday, a New Mexico jury ruled it must pay $375 million for failing to protect kids who use its apps from child predators. And some analysts believe there is momentum building against social media companies, especially after a number of countries consider banning teens from platforms. Parents who hold the companies responsible for harming their children were celebrating the ruling outside the LA courtroom and pledged to take their fight to Congress.
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This is not over. We know this is a long game. We're headed to D.C. with the evidence we have in hand and this verdict, and we're demanding safety protections and legislation to keep kids safe online from our legislators.
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Yesterday's ruling could have implications for hundreds of similar cases that are currently making their way through the courts. But Allen cautions that's a long way down the road, and people shouldn't assume any big changes quickly.
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A more cynical take is that this is not really going to do much immediately and it's not likely to do anything in the long term. This is going to be a very long appellate process and, and these companies just have all the resources in the world to sort of maintain the status quo. Of course, the advocates, the people who have been pushing for these cases to go to trial are dancing today. But will that actually lead to any changes on social media? That's a big question mark.
- [06:14]
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It's a new record. Air travelers in the US are experiencing the longest wait times in TSA's 24 year history. That's according to the agency's acting director, Hawin McNeil, who told House lawmakers that the disruption was unprecedented, unacceptable, and set to get worse.
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We are being forced to consolidate lanes and may have to close smaller airports if we do not have enough officers. It is a fluid, challenging and unpredictable situation.
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The partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security has ground some airport lines to a halt as TSA workers stay home without pay. In major airports, lines are snaking all over the terminals with seemingly no end in sight. In Houston, the lines were so long they descended to the basement levels. As CBS and ABC reporters discovered, that was not a pleasant experience.
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I am stuck down here in this hell hole. I'm sorry.
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It's really bad.
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We're underground.
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It was horrible. No bathroom?
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Yeah, there's no bathroom down there.
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No food.
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Nothing.
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Not a Biscoff cookie. Nothing. It's hot. A damn mess. It's a mess. It's a mess for real. Though.
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The growing discomfort during a busy spring break season has added a sense of urgency for politicians to come to a deal. But so far, despite some reports of progress, Senate Majority Leader John Thune and his Democratic counterpart, Chuck Schumer are still some ways apart.
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Travelers are beyond fed up with the disastrous situation at US Airports, and we cannot continue to keep this critical department unfunded.
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So if anyone is slowing down negotiation and hurting TSA workers, it's the Republican leadership, who did not include one single reform.
- [08:04]
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Tomorrow is a critical day for Congress to find a way out of this crisis. TSA workers will miss another paycheck. And it's the last day before lawmakers head out for recess. Unless, of course, a deal pushes that back. This week, Senate Republicans proposed to fund dhs, except for parts of ICE that are involved in the administration's deportation crackdown. But Democrats want more guarantees on ICE reforms, while conservatives within the GOP raised concerns that it amounted to a cut on immigration control. Acting TSA head McNeil told politicians that even if the current impasse is resolved, it will take time to ramp up staffing and not quickly enough for a major event later this year.
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Not only is the shutdown decreasing the number of interested candidates for those we are able to hire, they are required to complete four to six months of training before they are certified to work at checkpoints. At this point, newly hired officers will not be able to work on the checkpoint until well after the 2026 FIFA World Cup. This is a dire situation. We are facing a potential perfect storm of severe staffing shortages and an influx of millions of passengers at our airports for the World cup games in less than 80 days.
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Unsurprisingly, TSA officers are leaving in large numbers. Robert Echeverria told CBS why he was quitting after nearly a decade at Salt Lake City Airport I think the hardest
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thing is seeing the struggle that my wife was going through and not trying to bring more stress to her, but seeing her cry every night. How am I going to feed my family? I love the agency, I love the the people that I worked with, but it just My family has to come first.
- [09:51]
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The Major League Baseball season started last night as the New York Yankees beat the San Francisco Giants. We know it's very early, but some die hard baseball fans may already be wondering which team will make it to the playoffs. To help out with that, we chatted with Tim Britton, a senior writer for the Athletic, for some insights. Every year he breaks down what it would take for each team to make the postseason, no matter how bad they were the previous season.
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It's something that I started doing a couple years ago. I think the tendency this time of year is to look at 30 teams in baseball and rule at least 14 or 15 of them out of the post season chase. And every year you get at least one, maybe two or three teams that surprise you.
- [10:31]
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To make his predictions, Britton looked at every team's projected record, according to data from the publication Baseball Prospectus. Then he compared them to a team with a similar record going back to 2008, the earliest year for available data. For some teams, it's a simpler endeavor, like say, the LA Dodgers, who are so good. Britain compared them to the LA Dodgers. On the flip side, when you get to the lower performing teams like say, the Colorado Rockies, who finished dead last in the majors last season, making the playoffs is a stretch. But Britton says when you look at historic comparisons, stranger things have happened.
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Look, I don't know that I'm picking the Rockies to make the playoffs. It's not impossible. The team I compared them to the last couple of years actually is the 2021 Giants, who I think they're projected to win 75 games. People thought they were, you know, maybe a.500 team, and they won 107 games in the NL West. They're the only team in the last, whatever, 12, 13 years to beat the Dodgers in the NL West. And it was with this just kind of outlandish, outlier season where all of their players had the best seasons of their careers.
- [11:34]
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And if you're not a huge baseball fan who's busy making predictions, there are some debuts happening this MLB season that you might find interesting. To start with last night's game exclusively streamed on Netflix, marking the start of the streaming Giants partnership with mlb, where they will host multiple live baseball events this season. And perhaps the buzziest new change for MLB this year is the introduction of what is known as the Automated Ball Strike Challenge System, or what is being commonly referred to as robot umpires. Now, human umpires will still call balls and strikes, but starting this season, pitchers, batters and catchers can challenge two calls per game. The technology electronically monitors the ball's precise location to track whether the pitch was in or out of the strike zone. And then an instant verdict is made. The technology has been tested and used in the Minor leagues since 2022. For those wanting to see it in action, the full slate of opening day games get going later today. And finally, a few other stories we're following. Iran has no intention of negotiating for now. That's according to its foreign minister, who dismissed talk of active negotiations. He did suggest mediators had delivered the U.S. s 15 point plan to end the war, but gave no indication that a deal was close. And Iran has reportedly countered with their own plan. Their conditions include ending assassinations of Iran's officials, guarantees that no other war with the country is started, war reparations and Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz. In a press conference on Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt maintained that discussions were continuing and productive. But she also said this if Iran
- [13:30]
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fails to accept the reality of the current moment, if they fail to understand that they have been defeated militarily and will continue to be President Trump will ensure they are hit harder than they have ever been hit before. President Trump does not bluff, and he is prepared to unleash hell. Iran should not miscalculate again.
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The U.S. justice Department has reached a financial settlement with Michael Flynn, the former Trump official and conservative activist who sought millions of dollars from the government for what he said was a wrongful prosecution effort. The settlement marks a complete reversal by the Justice Department, which had successfully fought his case in the past. Flynn pleaded guilty during Trump's first term to lying to the FBI about his conversations with the top Russian diplomat and was later pardoned by Trump. And finally, Stephen Colbert has a new job. Yesterday, in a conversation with New Zealand director Peter Jackson, the CBS Late show host announced that he would help write the next Lord of the Rings movie, a big departure from his current gig, which he leaves in May. Colber is a huge fan of the series, and he said while rereading it he was inspired to write something based on some of the early chapters of the first book that was left out of the original movies.
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And I thought, oh wait, maybe that could be its own story that could fit into the larger story. Could we make something that was completely faithful to the books while also being completely faithful to the movies?
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It's a surprising move, but it's actually not his first role in the franchise. Colbert had a non speaking cameo in the Hobb. You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next. Bloomberg businessweek reports on Red Lobster, which was once regarded as the king of seafood franchises and now the chain is struggling to stay afloat as its CEO pitches a comeback story. If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Narrated to find that story. And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.