D (2:26)

Instagram sent her harmful videos and when one of the videos that they sent is what she did and that's how we found her, I was able to find that particular video 15 times. This particular person has probably 50 or more accounts.

A (2:52)

We got thrown for a Real loop this week. I sat down in the courtroom Monday morning expecting juror questioning to go on as to have a jury within the next couple of days. And instead Judge Carolyn Kuhl addresses the courtroom and says, we've had a bit of a holdup in this trial. One of the lead defendant attorneys, a Meta attorney, is sick. And so she went ahead and released the jurors that day and ordered them to return on February 5, which was Thursday. The judge said, this is unfortunate and nobody had contained control over this and, and she apologized. But that, that really threw us for that loop Monday morning.

C (3:28)

Well, especially because we had plans to have so many of the survivor families out for the beginning of the trial. Some of these families have been seeking justice for over a decade, looking for who and how will we eventually hold these companies accountable. And so can you imagine, like they've been waiting, waiting, waiting. We had them here in la and then to have this delay was just very, it was tough, it was emotional. And we ended the vigil on Thursday, which we'll talk later about in the episode, which was extremely powerful and awesome. But I'm not going to say that it wasn't a blow. When we heard that initially there was

A (4:04)

disappointment and we were worried about how this was going to move forward, to be honest. And I actually got to interface with the plaintiff attorney, Kaylee's attorney, Mark Lanier, about this delay and here's what he had to say.

B (4:16)

Yeah, you sort of feel like you've, you've gone to this buffet and you've put all this great food on your plate only to find out there's a fire alarm and you've got to go outside. You can't eat anything. You just planned on eating. We had all of the food out there. We were ready to go and we get told, come back, we'll do it another day.

A (4:37)

So separately, we found out that Meta had asked for a 30 day deferment of the trial, potentially due to this mystery illness, that we weren't sure what had happened at that point. What do you think was happening here, Sarah? Because there was some confusion over is this just a delay to actually tactic. Right.

C (4:55)

Knowing how much the companies want to get out of this and how often they lie or obstruct the truth or delay or confuse the public. It just didn't seem out of the realm that this was a delay tactic on purpose to continue to have more time to prep whatever it would be or just to get out of this news cycle. And they want a different, they want a different week. They Want a different time for whatever reason. So we don't trust them. Right. So that's why anytime something like this happens, we have to. We wonder. We wonder. But at the same time, we want everything that we do to be based on facts. And we understand that we're following a very, like, formal process. And so we navigated it. But it was hard not to project about the illness or injury and wonder if that was really what was happening. Right.

A (5:47)

Because that same day, the news was making the rounds about Mark Zuckerberg being in the Epstein files, having dinner with him years after Epstein had pled guilty. And Mark Zuckerberg was supposed to testify that within days after. Within a week after this day we're talking about. So there was just a lot happening that day. Right. There was a lot going around in our minds about what's happening in. In reality here. We were looking forward to getting back to trial on Thursday morning, but on Wednesday night, I get an update from the court that there has been a water leak at the main courthouse. And so there was. There was worry and confusion over, are we going to actually get back in the courtroom the next day? And luckily they were able to find a courtroom in another courthouse in downtown la. So we. We did get back into the courtroom Thursday morning to resume jury selection.

C (6:39)

Yeah. And the joke was like, the locusts are coming next.

A (6:43)

It was crazy.

C (6:45)

What else can happen at this point? Yeah. The good news, like you said, is that it, they did reopen yesterday, and so things are proceeding. I think that that is really important, especially for the families who are involved in these trials, to feel like things are progressing and moving forward. And so that was a big relief.

A (7:02)

And we'll have an update on that, a really exciting update, in just a couple of minutes, but I want to share a little bit more about the jury selection process. And so we brought in our legal expert, Michael Quaid, and so we'll hear from him now.

E (7:14)

We had a chance to see 75 jurors come in, in the morning, fill out a questionnaire about hardship and whether or not they'd be able to economically serve or if they had family obligations, and then fill out a second questionnaire. And just by going through three different days where there's two sets of juries each day, they were able to cycle through 450 jurors in three days, which is amazing and efficient. Jury selection is very important because we all have biases. I, for example, don't like olives. So if you were going to make anything with an olive in it, and you Were going to say, hey, I want you to judge this competition. I would be the worst person for that because I don't like olives. I couldn't be fair. Even in the the vor dire that we saw in the courtroom, we saw people on the panel talking about their older parents getting these devices for the first time and they were so infatuated or addicted to them, they didn't want to do anything else other than stare at their phones. So you see people talking about how it's impacted their family members and the like. So you're trying to figure out, as the trial lawyer, is there somebody there that just has such a feeling that you would essentially, if you're starting a race, you'd be a step or two behind. So you want to make sure that the jurors are, are open minded and they don't already have such a hard line position that they can't change their mind. This is very similar to what the, the lawyers experienced in the tobacco litigation, because at that time when the tobacco litigation was going on, virtually everybody in the country knew somebody who smoked, family member, grandparent, parent, friend, etc, and they had been told in Congress there was nothing wrong with it. You know, it wasn't addictive. But then once the litigation started and the emails emerged, we saw a different story. And I think that's what you're going to see here is you're going to see emails that come out where the company is acknowledging that there is an economic benefit to put profits over people.

A (9:12)

One thing that I found worrisome about the jury selection process is that If Meta and YouTube got the names of the jurors, they would be able to take trillions of data points and create arguments that will easily sway that jury. I mean, that's what they do with their algorithms, right? Is they change minds and opinions. And so there is a rule and guidance given to the counsel for these companies that the attorneys cannot give the names of the jurors to the companies themselves.

E (9:44)

This case is unique because the parties, the defendants, know so much about people and the judge has told the lawyers their clients can't do anything with that information other than what's in the public domain. So it levels the playing field. But we won't know whether or not that's being enforced. And I'm not saying they're doing anything wrong, but typically you find out about these things when a whistleblower comes forward after the fact.

A (10:11)

I'm excited to share with everyone that a jury has been selected. We have 12 jurors and six alternates ready to go for opening statements on Monday.

E (10:20)

Yay.

A (10:23)

The trial is starting.

C (10:24)

This is like a critical, critical step in moving forward. And, you know, we wondered could they agree on 12 people for this case? And obviously you. You sort of assume they will, but then when you get into it and you see all the reasons why people are dismissed and so forth, anyway, it's just very exciting that we have the jury and we can move forward.

A (10:46)

We've come such a long way already, and people have been commenting to me like, I can't believe we haven't even started the trial yet, because it's been a journey and it's. There's been ups and downs. And so I just want everyone to take a moment and celebrate that we have a jury and we're moving forward. And trial, the real trial, starts Monday. Now we're going to get into a section where we talk about moments that mattered from this week. Something that matters a lot, I think, for the parents in this movement as having a voice in the courtroom that they can trust. And I consider that an honor of my life to be able to know these parents and to be able to report to them and share with them what I'm hearing in the courtroom. I made sure I showed up at 5am every day to be the first one in line during the jury process, where it was first come, first serve. And I was number one. And I got that pass, and I showed the court staff that I'm invested. And I applied for a pass to be in the media section during the trial. And there was about 20 spots. And the day we found out who got passes, I'm sitting in the courtroom next to Fox Business and Wall Street Journal and CNN and NBC, and everyone's saying, I got my pass. I got my pass. I got my pass. And I get an email and it says that I'm on a wait list and that the media spaces are currently filled. And my heart dropped. I almost cried in the courtroom and was just really deflated in that moment of why is it only traditional news media outlets that are getting the chance to see and hear what's happening in that courtroom? Because there is no audio or video feed. Luckily, Michael Quaid, who we already heard from in this interview, was sitting right behind me. And I turned around and told him. And he got so mad, he got so pissed off that he sat there and started furiously drafting an appeal. And so we worked together to personalize it, and I sent that appeal to the court. Basically, I appealed with an argument around legality and equal Equal treatment and equity. That non traditional media, like myself, like a podcaster, we deserve a seat at the table alongside these traditional media outlets when reporting on proceedings in the court. I talked about the fact that podcasters often reach larger audiences than legacy media outlets. And we've built that trust and credibility. We've built real relationships with human beings person to person. I'm in that courtroom on behalf of victims, and I want to be able to share with them what's going on. So all of that and much more was in this appeal. And by the end of the day, I was so grateful to be with you. Sarah, in a hotel room in downtown LA when we got the email and we found out that we got the spot. I have an email from the court.

C (13:33)

I feel like you're getting into college. Sounds like one of those college videos.

A (13:37)

Read it to me. So I appealed the decision to not give me a media pass at the trial, and then they sent me a this one.

C (13:44)

Johnson. Okay, I'm gonna read it to you f it.

A (13:48)

What does it say, sis?

C (13:50)

We were able to secure additional seating for media. Please see the edition below. It's so funny because when you texted me that you didn't get one, I knew you were gonna end up with one. Like, I just knew. So I knew for you was a huge loss in that moment. And you're like, I'm going to appeal. And it's so funny because I just knew in my heart of hearts that you would get it, that they would honor the determination that you had shown and already and your loyalty to the families and the parents and how you showed up at court every day. And it's really a testament to the focus that you have on this right now. So I just knew you were gonna get it. It was all gonna work out. And I'm sorry that you had to go through that emotional arc. But here you are with a media pass, and it does kind of play into, like the David and Goliath story here. Right? Which is this is all about those of us without a lot of power being able to hold companies and also institutions and others accountable so that we have a seat at the table. So that was a great win.

A (14:55)

Absolutely. And it just means so much to everyone in this movement and all of the parents. And we got an outpouring of gratitude from parents like Jim and Kate Sullivan who are parent survivors. They said, we're just thrilled and thankful that you were able to gain a pass for the trial. We look every day for your updates, knowing we will hear the truth on what And I have chills as I say that because I'm just so grateful to be able to provide that to them. We found out about the media pass. We walked downstairs to get dinner with a bunch of parent survivors who had been in town for the trial, and we had an amazing dinner. And we're able to talk about how hopeful we all feel about how this trial will move forward. And while I was in the courtroom this week, you were spending time directly with these parents. And can you tell us a little bit more about what happened this week?

C (15:39)

So you talk about the honor of your career being able to report from inside the courtroom. One of the greatest honors of my career is being able to support these incredible parent survivor families in taking direct action and taking their power back from the companies and demanding change in a way that makes them feel powerful. So they did that this week. They did not let the fact that the court had changed its schedule dissuade them from holding a vigil memorial outside the Spring Street Courthouse. On Thursday at 10am These incredible 12 survivor families stood together in a line holding a picture of their child, their angel, their baby. And then in front of them were 31 more photos of other children that we've lost to social media harms, tying back to the root of these cases, which is addiction. And the fact that all of these children died from careless product design choices that these companies have made that they've known were harmful and let exist anyway that cost these kids their lives. And we stood there for 33 minutes, which represented the over 2,000 cases. So one per second, equaling the 33 minutes and 20 seconds. I believe in silence to honor those families and just make this whole thing more human again. Right. Like, there is the legal processes and sort of the ins and outs of the trial, but also like not getting lost in that either. Right. What is this? And this is what this whole podcast series is about, is it's about making this human and what's really at stake here. The press that came was really affected by it. They. Some of them were crying before the parents even showed up, just knowing they were on their way. And. And afterwards, in the debrief with the families, we had a really great conversation both about how it's always about educating the press on these issues and how to ask questions in a way that are respectful of what these families experienced, but also help people learn what happened and why these companies need to be held accountable. But that overall, there does seem to be a shift with reporters around understanding these issues and the sympathy and empathy that many of those on the ground showed was I would say, one of the warmer moments of the week. And then afterwards we left and we had a great debrief conversation about how it felt. And you know, it's just a very emotional thing. One of them said it this way. They said that they sacrificed their own feelings to help educate and bring justice and to protect future children. And I really thought that was a beautiful way of saying it because they have to go through that whole arc of emotion every time they do something like this and they don't have to do that and they do it because they want other children to be safe. So we should be in such awe and be grateful, which we are.

A (18:41)

Yeah, we really are. And I think through their efforts we're really breaking through the narrative that this is parents responsibility and that these companies don't have a responsibility to be safe. It's just all on parents. And another thing I noticed this week, week was like the collision of like law and attorneys and then families. And we funny enough all were staying, a lot of us were staying at the same hotel this week and so were many of the attorneys or some of the attorneys with their war rooms actually located in the hotels that we, in the hotel that we were staying in. And you know, I want to talk about the attorneys for a minute because these attorneys are defending trillion dollar companies who are fighting against families like yours and mine. And I've, I get comments all the time like how do the attorneys sleep at night? And I wonder what, where your mind's at here? Like are they doing this for a paycheck? Are they selling out? Like what, what is, where's your mind at?

C (19:41)

When there is legal action, both sides are represented fairly. And part of me thinks that some of this is more about that practice versus by representing a company, I'm harming individ people. Sure, I know it's like I. But I don't know, I don't know because I'm not one. And is it my life's choice to do that work or yours? No. But I guess it just doesn't surprise me that they're going to have really good, really smart representation. And how those people then choose to sleep at night is kind of on their conscious not part.

A (20:20)

And one thing that Judge Kuhl said to the jury actually was that the jury's gonna have to understand the law behind this case. And that may mean that you don't agree with the law. Sometimes Judge Kuhl has to make a decision that she doesn't agree with because it follows the law. I overheard YouTube's attorney, their main trial attorney, say that he doesn't let his daughter on YouTube. He said it in confidence in the hallway to another person. I don't have any context around this. I didn't hear the information given before and after. But I know what I hear and that scares me.

C (21:00)

Does that even surprise us based on the fact that we know Also the tech CEOs don't let their kids use the products either. And yet they're shoving them down our, into our families, into our kids lives. Like again, it just like mirrors Big Tobacco. If they know it's unsafe and addictive, they're not. They don't want their own families to have it. But then it's sort of like everyone else can choose what they want because that's the, the building blocks of their business. If everyone gave it up, then there would be no trillion dollar business. But I think it's says, says volumes that if that lawyer said he doesn't let his own kid use it, then it's pretty hard to justify defending it in court.

A (21:40)

Exactly. I want to share one more thing that I learned about this week and that is more about our lead trial attorney for Kaylee, for the plaintiff, Mark Lanier. And I talked with several different people about him having not have known Mr. Lanier prior. And I just got comment after comment about how incredible he is, how he's the best in the country. And when I told one person about who, who he is and said his name, they said to me, wow, you've already won. Because they're that confident in his abilities.

E (22:11)

Mr. Lanier trying the bellwether case for the plaintiffs is a, a significant, significant positive because I believe that he is the finest lawyer in, in the United States as far as civil lawyers go.

A (22:29)

Like we've talked about over and over. These cases aren't just about documents and evidence and legal theory. They're about real children who have been directly harmed or lost because of the decisions these companies have made. Children like England.

D (22:44)

We had come from the beach five, six days before with England, just happiest

F (22:49)

kid you ever want to see, and excited. And again, we thought it was just a platform where she was connecting with her friends and she had given us all her passwords. So we knew she was like, I have nothing to hide. Dad would check her phone when she was at school. So it wasn't like she was hiding anything. But we just didn't know where to look.

D (23:12)

Instagram sent her harmful videos and when one of the videos that they Sent is what she did. And that's how we found her. Now, of course, we didn't know until a month or so after she passed when I really started going through her phone to find out how. Where did she get this room? Where did she get the idea from? But then when I started digging even further, whatever she was looking through, you could see all the suicide type of content, even from, I guess you would consider them famous people, people that's in the music industry or just influencers talking about their mental health. And you can just start seeing just a trail of bad stuff that probably led her down that rabbit hole of whatever she was feeling. After I did more research, after I started learning how these algorithms and how these different things work, I was able to find that particular video 15 times. This particular person has probably 50 or more accounts. If they were really serious about Instagram teens, that account that I'm speaking about, all 40, 50 or more of her accounts, they would all be gone.

C (24:38)

So Toni and Brandi told us about England's use of social media and how it affected her body image and her confidence.

F (24:45)

She says how social media sees her one way, but then she sees herself another way. And she had altered one of her pictures to make herself seem skinnier. And England was by no means overweight or out of shape, and we just couldn't see what she felt. And I think it was just the pressures to feel perfect on social media

D (25:09)

once Francis Hagen exposed the truth. And you started seeing these different specialists, professional people come on cnn, msnbc, all the different news channels, and then they showed how it causes especially teenage girls to cut themselves. And when I remember going through her phone and I had saved pictures, she had pictures on her phone where she was cutting herself. One day I went to the house after this happened and just sat down and started going through her phone again. And that's when I discovered lock note, the very first password that I put in. Unlock the note. So this is how innocent, pure, and loving and trusting this child was. But I'll read to you what it says. It says, emotional description is what she typed in is only what the media sees. I show people what they want to see. But behind the social media life, nobody knows the real me and how much I struggle to make sure everyone's good, even though I'm not. If it's not one thing, it's the other. And when things are going wrong for me, I just become so suicidal, and I just need that emotional support. I don't want anyone feeling bad for me just to support my choices I make in life. I want somebody to help me through my mental struggle. Because if no one's there, who do I have? And about 11 days later, our child was gone.

A (26:40)

And the Robert story is familiar to me. I've heard it countless times when I've interviewed parents who've lost children to social media harms.

F (26:49)

And that's what's so, so sad. Because the community that we have made with these parents, when we tell them our stories and we share our stories with them, they all sound so similar. Like you were thinking that they were great and come to find out they were struggling. And yet that social media comes up over and over again. And we wonder why they didn't tell us. But they didn't know. They didn't. It was. They didn't know how to express their feelings.

D (27:21)

It's like they grew up with this. And so the way that they feel, in my opinion, they don't know it's not the right feeling to feel because they've been exposed to it for so long and so many years of their life. They don't realize that's not a natural feeling. Like I grew up with playing basketball or running outside, riding a bike.

C (27:39)

And we asked Tony and Brandi what it would be like if they do in fact end up in the courtroom when the head of Instagram Adam Mosseri testifies or when CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies, like what that could possibly be like after what they've gone through, to know

D (27:57)

that these people knew what the hell that they were doing and decided to choose the profits over the lives of children and the. This devastating feeling that we're going to live with the rest of our lives. You know, it's hard to describe because of the love that we share with all of our children. But England being the baby and you just want to just spoil her and just love on her every day, it's hard to stand there and see all these children that are gone for no reason whatsoever because of the end. The way that they intentionally. Even though he was told by his own team what it was doing to children through their own research in Mark, Zuckerberg still chose to carry on and then to know that he only valued our children's Life at only 270 bucks.

A (29:04)

Let's dig into a little bit more from our attorney contacts, kind of helping us understand the process a little bit more. And there was one thing that happened last week that I didn't catch and I really want to make sure we mention it here. And it has to do with what we heard during the attorney's mini opening statement.

E (29:22)

Yeah. In California, there's a code section that says that as a trial lawyer, you have a constitutional right to give a mini opening to the jury because the judge just reads a general statement. So when you're the trial lawyer, you get a chance to get up there and you get a chance to talk about the case. It's usually brief, five minutes or less. You get a chance to talk about who your client is, and you also get a chance to talk about if there's any sort of weaknesses in your case. So the jury hears from you the first time and you're being transparent. Your job is to be a teacher, and you need to have credibility with your jury so they understand that when you're telling them something, you have a track record of stuff that you can point to and prove that it's actually happened. The mini openings, I thought Mr. Linear did a really nice job of explaining his case, explaining the weaknesses of his case. The young plaintiff in this case used social media when she was very young. So he's not hiding that fact. If you're on the jury, you're thinking, well, why didn't he say that? That changes everything. So he's trying to get out those potentially negative issues. So he's transparent and he's being brutally honest with the jury, because that's important. Meta, on the other hand, got up there and I think, to me it was more of an indication of what's coming. Because looking at my notes here, when Mr. Schmid had his chance for his mini opening, he talked about the filters on the platform, and in doing so, he talked about how Instagram itself wanted to make changes to the filter, but Mr. Zuckerberg wanted to keep it as it was. Those are my notes based upon what was discussed. So to me, that's more of a signpost of what we're going to see in exhibits that are going to come out in evidence, emails that are being communicated with the engineers or the leadership team about putting profits over people.

A (31:08)

And one more thought from me on the jury questioning this week, because I've been really interested in watching the YouTube attorney, Louis Lee, and how the interactions are going. Having two defendants, right? We have YouTube and Meta. And it's become very clear that YouTube wants to be separated from Meta and possibly even be pointing the finger. Like, Meta's the bad guy. It's not us, we're just YouTube. Uh, and so he asked questions, the YouTube attorney, Louis Lee, asked questions of the jury, like, so we all know Zuckerberg doesn't own YouTube. Right. Because there was consideration of like, people just don't like Zuckerberg. And he wants to make sure everyone understands very clearly that YouTube has no association with Mark Zuckerberg.

C (31:50)

Now that you actually bring that up, there is a long standing, well documented rivalry, bad blood situation between many of these companies and Google and Meta are included in that. I'm really interested to understand what the strategy there is. Like, do you go in as a united front or do you throw one under the bus?

A (32:11)

Right. Because there's gonna be two verdicts. It's like guilty and guilty. Right. It's not just lumping them together.

F (32:17)

No.

C (32:17)

I mean, that's so obvious. But now when you say it that way, I guess, because wouldn't they just completely both try and throw each other under the bus? And what would be the value of fending them off? Like, I'm just curious about actual strategy. Like, what is the, what is the way they typically go in those situations? Maybe we could ask a legal expert on a future call.

A (32:38)

Yeah, and thank goodness I'll be in the courtroom, like listening for this. You know, it'll become very clear. So next week in court, we are going to be hearing opening statements from plaintiff attorney Mark Lanier from Meta and YouTube attorneys as well. And that means that we will start hearing from actual witnesses later in the week. Everybody wants to know when Mark Zuckerberg is appearing. And Zuckerberg is a chief witness. I've heard him described as. That doesn't mean first witness, it just means critical witness. So we could be hearing from other people first. We are also looking forward to hearing from the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri.

C (33:20)

What I can say about next week is that there will be more Survivor parents in town and we can't wait to tell you more about what's going to happen with them. And people are very interested in this trial and everything that happens, but no one is more interested than the families who've lived through this hell themselves. And so stay tuned on what ends up happening next week.

A (33:42)

Next week we're back in the courtroom. As this trial really begins, we'll be

C (33:47)

translating what we hear into meaningful takeaways for parents like us. Because when it comes to these companies that are in our kids pockets and even in their schools, we need to be paying attention.

A (33:58)

So please continue to follow the trial through all of our different platforms. But particularly, the best way to stay updated is signing up for our email list@trollingtodeath.com and share this episode with anyone you know that cares about kids in this world because we all need to be following along. And so thank you for being here. And we will be in touch with another episode recap next week.

F (34:21)

Again, it's not about the money. It's about justice. We want them to be held like every other company who has a faulty product and who are harming Americans, kids, teens, parents. We want them to be held to the same standards as everyone else. You have a faulty product, fix it.