Sarah Gardner (3:02)

This week felt like the week of the Senate judiciary hearing in 2024, where what is happening in LA with these parents against Meta and YouTube is everywhere. And I actually think that people are having a reference point for it. And I saw things I've never seen before in this field happen. So I'm really excited about it. And I hear you on the confusion of the specifics of the case, but I also feel in order to break through at a level of consciousness of the general public, it will be confusing, but we're actually breaking through for one of the first times. But I hear you, I hear you. And I think it's really important to help ground people in what's actually happening. And it's a testimony to the survivor parents who are not even in this trial and case. How much time and energy they're all spending on this particular moment is incredible.

Nikki Petrosi (4:02)

And not to take away from the fact that we have people like my cousin who would not have known about any of this unless it was on the mainstream news that he was happening to watch. And so as a little background, we have thousands of families in this consolidated grouping of cases. This is not class action. So the cases are going to be tried one by one. The first case being tried right now that we are four weeks into is about Kaylee, who is now 20 and she was suing Meta, YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat. TikTok and Snapchat settled with her before the case actually started. You're not going to see Kaylee online or in the media because she's trying to stay anonymous. And so we have a bunch of other families that are both part of this, the consolidated grouping of cases, or maybe not part of the consolidated grouping, but have had children harmed by these companies who are coming into town to support Kaylee and to support the other families who are part of this consolidated group.

Sarah Gardner (5:04)

And also because I think they want to see what Mark is going to say. I mean, this is what we kept telling media the whole week. This is the first time that Mark Zuckerberg was under oath in a court of law, having to answer questions about his company and what it does to kids like that is groundbreaking history. And so I also don't think they even feel like they can stay away because they are so eager to hear, like, we keep the mantra, truth, justice, accountability. Right now we're just on the truth part. We're trying to get to the truth part. I don't think we're fully digesting what this week will mean in the history zeitgeist of holding tech Accountable on these issues. Like, this week was a standout moment.

Nikki Petrosi (5:56)

I feel like I'm still getting over it and still processing it. And that makes complete sense. And we're going to move to now what actually happened in the courtroom. And most of what we're going to talk about today has to do with Mark Zuckerberg's testimony, because I was able to, as media, take notes on my computer of what I heard that day. And I think I have nearly 40 pages of notes. And so we consolidated, and we're going to cover the things we want parents to know. Monday being a court holiday. Happy belated President's Day Tuesday. We were supposed to hear from a couple of whistleblowers that day. And so I get into the courtroom and we hear from the judge right away. That juror in the number four seat had called in sick. He was at the hospital with a respiratory infection. You know, we were disappointed. There's been delay after delay after delay, like water leaks and head injuries. And now another thing. And there was pressure from the judge to be like, we got to keep this going. But the counsel on both sides, the defendant and the plaintiff side, wanted to give that juror a day. They were worried about dismissing him too quickly and worried about a run on the jury. Apparently, that can happen where if one juror drops off, then other jurors can start to drop off as well, trying to, like, get out of this long process. Now we're on to the next day. That juror was not better. And so they subbed in alternate juror number one into that jurors. So spot. Now we're at Wednesday, which we called Z day for Zuckerberg. Right.

Sarah Gardner (7:30)

It started like you said, before the actual morning. I mean, people were doing interviews the night before. Going into that morning. I don't think really any of us slept very much. Everybody was up at like, 4, 5. The whole thing felt so surreal, right? Like at some point he's gonna appear. I just wanted to give a shout out to all the folks who were working on all the comms around this and organizing the media, because we didn't really. We hoped we would have a lot of interest, but the interest that we had was at a level and scale that I don't think any of us anticipated. And everybody wanted to talk to everybody all the time. And so it was just a tremendous amount of work. Like, the clips you see in the media around these stories all have to be coordinated and placed and interviewed and happened. And so the team that helped make that happen really worked their Butts off this week to make sure that the families and the realities of these cases were well represented in the media. And the really shocking thing is that Meta had no comms plan against it. And that's why we just took over. Like, they had no. What was their comms plan? They were not actively putting out a counter narrative. And I just think that that speaks. Speaks to the arrogance of Mark Zuckerberg. Like, he is so confident that none of us are gonna get off Instagram. He's so confident that he can withstand this level of scrutiny and bad press, that they had no plan. They were like, we're just gonna roll in here and give our answers. And you know who's way more powerful than that? The parents who've lost their children, who are mad and angry and have something to fight for.

Nikki Petrosi (9:16)

You got a ticket? I got a ticket. I got a ticket.

Parent Survivor (e.g., Tammy Rodriguez or Felina's mother) (9:19)

But let's hope I get the match

Nikki Petrosi (9:20)

so I get to go in. I know. So they're gonna choose who. That's 8 o'.

Titania Jordan (9:23)

Clock.

Parent Survivor (e.g., Tammy Rodriguez or Felina's mother) (9:24)

8:05.

Titania Jordan (9:25)

Yeah.

Parent Survivor (e.g., Tammy Rodriguez or Felina's mother) (9:25)

So we'll see. I mean, we don't know what to expect tomorrow. How many people will come down and how many people are interested in this?

Nikki Petrosi (9:30)

Yeah, okay.

Sarah Gardner (9:31)

See, it's a crapshoot.

Nikki Petrosi (9:32)

We hope we get in.

Parent Survivor (e.g., Tammy Rodriguez or Felina's mother) (9:34)

We are gonna get in.

Nikki Petrosi (9:34)

I'll get in. She's got her media pass.

Sarah Gardner (9:36)

She's like, if you don't get in,

Nikki Petrosi (9:37)

I'll tell you what happens.

Parent Survivor (e.g., Tammy Rodriguez or Felina's mother) (9:38)

Okay.

Titania Jordan (9:38)

Okay.

Nikki Petrosi (9:38)

Okay.

Parent Survivor (e.g., Tammy Rodriguez or Felina's mother) (9:39)

Thanks, Nikki.

Sarah Gardner (9:40)

Then there was also the really horrible reality of, like, who's gonna get in and who isn't gonna get in. And there was a great conversation happening amongst the parents about everyone is going to be where they were supposed to be. Hopefully some of us will get inside. But even if none of us get inside, like, that means we're supposed to be out here. And actually that played out because we needed you and others in there observing and seeing and experiencing, like, what he said firsthand. But because some parents then were left outside, they could continue to talk to the press and the media and we could see spread that story so much wider. So it's like one of those moments where you really have to believe that, like, what's supposed to unfold will unfold and trust and have faith that it's going to work out. And I think it did.

Nikki Petrosi (10:31)

It really did. And there. There was a lot of interest in trying to get in on the public lottery system. There was close to 70 individuals trying to get those spots. I think There was about 12 or 15 spots total for public and only two of the parents got in. But like you said, it worked out how it was supposed to. And actually a couple more got in on standby later in the day. And so people were able to get in there and observe along with myself. So now we're going to go into what happened behind those courtroom doors on Z Day. First things first. And this is probably the most unimportant thing of all the things I'm going to say today, but Mark Zuckerberg is so short.

Sarah Gardner (11:11)

Okay, wait, let's Google how tall he actually is.

Nikki Petrosi (11:13)

So I will tell you, because I already did. He's. How tall. How tall do you think he was?

Sarah Gardner (11:19)

Oh, my God. He is five' seven.

Nikki Petrosi (11:20)

Five. Seven. And I know, you know, short is fine. Like, there's nothing wrong with that.

Sarah Gardner (11:26)

Shout out to all the short kings is not one of them.

Nikki Petrosi (11:30)

No, we're. And we don't. He's not under that label. But I was just shocked because you have this image of him and you think he's got to be close to six foot tall, and he was a small man, and it just shocked me. I couldn't get over it.

Sarah Gardner (11:42)

Well, the thing that I would say, though, about his presence, just experiencing him walking by as a short man was the austere, cold facade. Like, it just felt like someone who I know this was like, is just not connecting to humans around them, and it was just very cold. And then to have that energy go by, the parents who have. Who are so, like, full of life and the shitty parts of life, but also the beautiful parts of life, they're dedicating their lives to fighting for other children. There's just such an imbalance in the energy in the room, honestly.

Nikki Petrosi (12:29)

So once Zuckerberg gets on the stand, Mark Lanier, the plaintiff attorney, Kaylee's attorney, starts to speak, and he first off, introduces Kaylee. So Kaylee was in the courtroom that day, and he wanted to make sure that Mark Zuckerberg saw Kaylee.

Sarah Gardner (12:44)

Wow. Did he look at her? Did Mark look at her?

Nikki Petrosi (12:47)

Yeah. I mean, Mark Lanier pointed her out and made sure. He was like, I want to make sure you see Kaylee, and here she is. And she stood there and confidently looked at him. Okay, so now we get into Mark Lanier, Kaylee's attorney's questioning roadmap. And I've talked about this before on previous episodes. He's very visual. He lays out the plan of what we're going to do with our day, and he makes it very easy for jurors to follow along. Today's Roadmap for Zuckerberg had three stops, and he literally draws, like, a road and then signs and with little grass, like, even, like grass underneath. And so the three stops on the roadmap for Zuckerberg were credibility, truth, and harm. And so that's what we're going to go through as I tell you about what the testimony looked like that day. So on the credibility stop, Mark Lanier started off by pointing out Zuckerberg's economic motive that he holds to be profitable. So he made it clear that Zuckerberg owns about 13% of Meta stock, which equates to about $215 billion. And to be very clear, the more that that stock price goes up, the more money Zuckerberg gets. Zuckerberg's argument here was, I have pledged to give almost all of this money to charity for science, research and other causes. He says he's pledged to give more than 99% of his wealth. And there was sort of some back and forth on like, well, have you done that? No, it's been pledged. To which Mark Lanier said, how much have you pledged to the victims of social media? Zuckerberg's response, I disagree with that characterization.

Sarah Gardner (14:23)

I have a lot of feelings about this because I have worked in the field of philanthropy for 15 years. And first of all, we have to separate what he does with his wealth from where the wealth came from and the harm that it created. Like, psychologically human karma wise. Sure. If he. Because he's caused so much harm in the world, if he wants to go give away 99% of his wealth to try and fixing some of the other harms, like, that's a great thing. Sure. That's not what's at. This is a legal case about the harms that you created and the proof around that what you do with the money has no bearing on the crime. Like, can you imagine another crime where somebody, like, murdered someone and then they were like, but the money I stole from them when I murdered them, I'm going to use. Like, that just doesn't even logically make sense. But I get that here he's trying to appeal to the human side of them. And there was a little bit of, you know, like, when he came in. It's definitely like a little bit of, like, when people see a celebrity like, oh, I got to walk him in, or, oh, I was next to him, or, oh, and you worry about that. The residue of sort of the celebrity aspect of him, even though his personality seems very unlikable. I would really love to get into the numbers of how much he's given away. Because if you look at who's actually giving their money away right now, Mackenzie Bezos, Melinda Gates. It's women who were married to some of these tech billionaires who actually are putting their money where their mouth is and giving the money away and giving it away regularly. And the men are slow behind and they need to get on board.

Nikki Petrosi (16:07)

So here's where Mark Lanier reminded Zuckerberg of three statements that he has made to Congress, which are the focus of a lot of the questioning and the evidence to come. Number one, Zuckerberg has said that people under the age of 13 are not allowed on their platforms. Number two, Zuckerberg has said, I don't give our Instagram teams goals around increasing the amount of time people spend. And number three, Zuckerberg has said the existing body of scientific work has not shown a causal link between using social media and young people having worse mental health outcomes. So let's go to that first point of not allowing children under 13 on their platforms. Mark Lanier showed several internal documents, one being an internal meta document that was a presentation that said we can estimate there were 4 million people under 13 in 2015 on Instagram and that this represents 30% of all 10 to 12 year olds in the United States. So they are internally talking about having millions of children under 13 on their platform. If they're able to be able to report on that, why are those kids still there? Why aren't they being removed?

Sarah Gardner (17:22)

I'm so tired of the fumbling around, around this whole, do they know the age and can they keep them off and are they there anyway? Like, what is the actual deal? So you have an age recommendation, but that's all it is. It's a recommendation because people can lie about their age to get on. And then my confusion really lies in then why are they saying that they don't actually know the age? So they're saying they know people lie. So then they roughly have ideas of how old they are. But then I feel like in some of the other documents they're like reverse aging them. So it's just like the whole thing feels like a bar with no security out front where, where IDs are like on the corner being handed to everybody and people are just like wandering in and then, and then like maybe being asked to leave, maybe, but otherwise getting to stay, like, it just is like a free for all. I don't understand it. I even me, as someone who really understands it, I don't even understand where the logic all lines up. Do you like, was it clear about where they're trying to go with the age gating stuff or the age actually enforcing their age rules?

Nikki Petrosi (18:38)

Zuckerberg kept relying on or stating that it is difficult to really determine the age if they've lied about it to determine their actual age. Now this was refuted by whistleblower Brian Bolan, which we'll get to later on in the episode. But Zuckerberg just kept stating that we have a set of people, a meaningful amount of people who lie about their age to use our services. But it is our policy that under 13s aren't allowed to use Instagram. We do use technology to detect them and remove them if we find them. But again it's difficult for them to determine is his argument. So when Kaylee signed up when she was nine years old, there actually was no age check at all. There was no birthday input. And so to this, Mark Lanier, you know, questioned about this and how could you even allow a platform where there was no even putting in the age or the birthday and then allow a nine year old to get on there? And Zuckerberg responded with well everyone has to agree to the terms and conditions. So that was his, his fail safe is a nine year old should know to read the terms and conditions and know that they can't be on there unless they're 13. One pushback from Zuckerberg on this was trying to put responsibility on Apple, the device maker multiple times. Zuckerberg referenced like why wouldn't the device maker Apple or Google for the other, for those two main manufacturers just age verify on the device level and then pass that information on to apps. I know you know more about this than anyone.

Sarah Gardner (20:11)

I mean honestly this is a place where I agree with him, but it's also a both and right because I think that the device makers, I think they should be doing age verification either at the device level or at the app store level. There's a lot of discussion about which one and why, how it would be the safest and the most private. But that would be a huge blocking point in terms of minor kids getting onto applications that they are underage for and also assuming that some still get through and assuming that your age rating is too low, you have to make your platform safe for even the age that you're recommending. So we would argue, I would argue that Instagram isn't safe for a 14 or 15 year old for all the reasons that we've talked about and can go into more. So this is like the classic Both and sandwich that we have on the Apple meta constant like volleyball game of whose whose job it is to fix this. And like the most important thing that people can take away is that both companies have really important fixes that they need to make. It's not one or the other. And actually, how lame is it that two of the most powerful rich men in the world are volleyballing this thing back and forth of who should actually do the work of protecting kids? It's you, it's you, it's you, it's you. I have yet to see either of them step up and say, we will work together on this and this is how we're gonna do it.

Nikki Petrosi (21:38)

Right. If you're not gonna do it Tim Cook, then I'm gonna do it. Somebody's gotta do it. Somebody's gotta make sure young kids aren't getting on these platforms given the exposures that can happen.

Sarah Gardner (21:47)

I'm doing it proactively instead of as a result of all of us coming to you in outrage would be nice.

Nikki Petrosi (21:54)

We're going to move now to Zuckerberg's statement about not giving his Instagram team goals around increasing time spent. Zuckerberg's whole thing here is that he wants to create something useful, something valuable, and if you do that, people will naturally want to use it more. And he admits that early on in the company they did have goals around time spent, but over time they started to focus more on utility and value instead. He said there's a basic assumption that if something is valuable, people will do it more because it's useful for them. That's different than having a goal for a team, asking them to encourage spending more time. If something is useful, people will do it more. So it's shown in the documents that we see in that courtroom that Zuckerberg was very clearly giving his team goals around time.

Titania Jordan (22:43)

That.

Nikki Petrosi (22:44)

So There was a 2015 document showing a three year arc and they and Zuckerberg wanted his teams to increase time spent by 12%. Now this is when Caylee was 10 years old and already on the platform. So that's very much applicable to this case. There was lots of other internal documents about specifically telling the teams to increase

Sarah Gardner (23:02)

time spent on that point. Specifically where he is sort of caught red handed on giving the directive. And it was during the Caylee time period. What was his answer to that that he.

Nikki Petrosi (23:14)

He did used to give goals around time spent. But his approach. Yeah, but his approach changed over time. But there was discrepancy on when his approach changed because then Mark Lanier produced a different internal document was in a messaging chain from October 2023, very recent, where employees are now discussing how the algorithm works. And actually now the algorithm is built to increase time spent and that this applies to teenagers population. So while there may not be publicly, you know, in their teams goals around time spent, the whole technology is built to increase time spent.

Sarah Gardner (23:53)

I see. So you don't even have to in, in some ways at that point it's like you're not even having to track it externally. It's like built into the system itself

Nikki Petrosi (24:02)

and there's subtle clues onto how this is still happening. So there's also a 2022 performance self review of Adam Aseri. So this is him writing a review of himself and he says, quote, my primary goal was to ensure that the app Instagram remains culturally relevant as measurement by sessions time and sharing, particularly with teens. So you see, oh my God there in 2022. So now we have something pretty strong. So there was an email shown from a Maxine Williams sent to many different meta employees, including Adam Mosseri of Instagram. This is December 2022 and it's a presentation, it's titled Family of Apps Milestones. So it's milestones that they're setting for themselves through a four year period under Instagram. It says their milestone for 2023 is 40 minutes per daily active user. Okay, then their milestone for 2024, 42 minutes per daily active user. Milestone for 2025, 44 minutes per daily active user. Milestones for 2026, 46 minutes per daily active user. So if that wasn't clear, that went up two minutes per daily active user over a four year period. And if that's not setting a goal around increasing time spent, I don't know what is.

Sarah Gardner (25:17)

When you said that, that just also made me so depressed because when I kind of realized I had a problem with Instagram was when I remember going on and seeing I was averaging like 50 to 60 minutes a day or something and realizing it was like a whole, I was losing a whole hour of my life a day to Instagram. So I'm on the, I was on the other side of pulling their number up to their milestone. But I don't know how you refute. Was it just that they got smarter about not writing it down all the time and then this poor lady put it in a presentation so now she's out on a limb or do you know what I mean?

Nikki Petrosi (25:55)

So then there was a whole argument about milestone versus goal. Zuckerberg was saying these are milestones not goals. Oh yeah.

Sarah Gardner (26:03)

I mean that's a real thing. Outcome versus outputs versus Yep.

Nikki Petrosi (26:08)

Yeah. So that got into the weeds there about milestones versus goals. But I think it's just very clear that what they're trying to do here is increase use of their platform, daily use of their platform and at the end of that document saying in 2026 they want Instagram to be the largest teen destination in the US and globally.

Sarah Gardner (26:27)

So this is also increasing kids time in Instagram at a point where it's wholly unsafe.

Nikki Petrosi (26:37)

Before they even had attempted to put in a safer experience, which they call teen accounts and safers in quotes. Now we are moving to that third statement that Zuckerberg has made more than once about there being no scientific work linking social media to worse mental health outcomes in young people. The big evidence around this is a MIST study, the Myst study, Myst, which was an internal study by Meta and it was specifically related to their beauty filters which they had created their own beauty filters. They ended up allowing users to create to user generate filters as well. And what the study found was 18 out of 18 experts that reviewed the effect of beauty filters on young people, particularly young girls. There was extreme concern and these experts were saying basically like we shouldn't be doing this, we shouldn't be pushing or allowing beauty filters for young girls. Now Zuckerberg at the time reviewed this report and decided to continue allowing beauty filters but with some restriction around ones that promote cosmetic surgery. Even though we have 18 out of 18 experts advising him not to do this. Mental health experts and then we have internal emails also showing team members having extreme concern that this is not the right call given the risks. Zuckerberg's argument to this was around free expression. He felt like he had to balance giving users the ability to express express themselves with what he didn't find to be validated risk to young people. He said, quote, I found that free expression should allow people to create those type of filters, but what we shouldn't do is create them ourselves or recommend them to others. And Mark Linear said, even if 18 out of 18 experts say it damages the mental health of teenage girls. Zuckerberg says there are also other experts, experts that disagree. Lanier says, what experts? What are their names? Zuckerberg says, I don't remember. Lanier says, when did you meet with them? Zuckerberg says, I don't think I met with them. Zuckerberg says, you're presenting one part of this views of people who study well being. But there are other stakeholders as well, including People who study free expression and people who use the product to express themselves. If people want to express something and there isn't evidence that it's harmful for them to do so, then I think you should generally let them express that thing. So I want to be very clear that the, the experts, the 18 out of 18 experts, they did not advise this. They thought it would be bad for the mental health of teenagers. But because beauty filters at the time were so new, there wasn't really like causal research to point to. And so that's what Zuckerberg's leaning on here is like we didn't have validated peer reviewed research, even though the experts highly recommended he do he do not allow this feature for, for young girls,

Sarah Gardner (29:25)

the freedom of expression stuff sounds very similar to like the strain of kind of tech libertarianism of like I should be able to do whatever I want on the Internet. And unfortunately that we know for kids that's not true because kids aren't fully formed brain people yet who can make, who know how to protect themselves against really bad things. And private spaces online are not always safe for kids. Like do you let your kid go into a room and talk to someone with all the doors closed and the windows closed and be like, oh yeah, go talk to that stranger for an hour and a half? This would be what I would also say about like what they're talking about free expression. An adult doing free expression is very different than a child doing free expression. Like what's influencing the child, what's and who's the child performing for, so to speak. If you don't have the evidence that it's not going to be harmful or harmful, then maybe you shouldn't put it out yet. If it's kid related, right.

Nikki Petrosi (30:31)

And it's beauty filters, okay, so we're allowing them to express themselves, but they're actually filtering themselves out and making them seem look different. So is that even expressing oneself? And you can offer all kinds of filters like silly characters and dog ears and the tongues and the things like and do that. But why are we allowing them to up to change the way that they look or even apply like a heavy set of makeup at these ages and what is that doing to their self image? And so it was the wrong call for sure. And it affected kids like Kaylee. There was further discussion about Zuckerberg's claim that there's no causal link between social media use and poor mental health in young people. He calls it problematic use and defines this as using Instagram more than you feel good about Zuckerberg stated that research does not support the conclusion that social media causes changes in adolescent mental health at the population level, despite internal documents we were shown showing the known negative effects of social media in general. And that was a quote from an internal document that they've looked at is known negative effects of social media in general. So that sort of wraps up in a nutshell, the questioning from Mark Lanier of Mark Zuckerberg. And then we have Meta's attorney, Paul Schmidt, coming in for the cross examination. I have some notes here, but not a lot to say because it was so boring, so dull, hard to stay focused and interested. And this was something I heard from several people that were, were in the room. But to summarize, Zuckerberg, within this part, repeated again and again, some variation of quote, there's a mischaracterization that if we maximize time spent, that's good for us. I'm focused on building a company that is successful in the long term. So if people aren't having a good experience, why would they continue using our product? And that was his thing, again and again is his North Star is making sure they're delivering value and that people are having a positive experience.

Sarah Gardner (32:37)

I'm tired of all the data that shows that kids are not all having a positive experience. And I don't understand how many more ways we have to show that that's true before it gets through to Meta, that, like, people are. That the addictiveness is actually causing a. It's not a happy relationship with the product. It's. It's a, it's a dependency. Everyone knows now, oh, I'm addicted. And like, yeah, they're nice moments, but there's also moments where you're like, oh, my God, I just spent an hour on my phone looking at this instead of looking up at my kids or walking around or working out or. So I don't. I just. The fundamentals are off, right? This, this was a platform about connecting people with their friends and family and, like, staying in touch with classmates, not about creating other worlds where people are, in theory having like, positive or negative experiences and they don't control it enough to know whether that's actually happening or not. Also, they sell ads. So the more ads you can serve to a person while they're on Instagram, that is directly tied to their monetary benefit, whether they're having a good time or a bad time.

Nikki Petrosi (33:50)

You are teasing. Later on, we are going to hear from a data science expert to talk about the ads and how the whole ad system and the Ad algorithm maximizes time spent. I'll say overall that he did not answer things directly. He stalled, he avoided, he acted dumb. He was well trained. I mean, at one point, Mark Lanier said, what question do you think you're answering? Because Zuckerberg was just going straight to his messaging points that he had been trained to say. And his tagline, I'm giving him a tagline for the day. It is. I disagree with that characterization.

Sarah Gardner (34:25)

But if he does that too much, does he end up in like, contempt of court? If he, like, literally. Because the most depressing thing about him coming out of the courthouse, when everyone who was in there came out, including some of the media, and I was having some off the record chats with them and the vibe I got from them was like, I don't even know how to cover what he said because it was just like these long, weird, like, oh, I gotta go look at my notes. I don't know. And that somehow I think I'm worried it distracted from the actual answers and it took the power away from nailing him to these points. Did you feel that in the room? Like, was that deflating?

Nikki Petrosi (35:08)

Yeah, it was distracting and deflating, for sure. I felt that. And I think that was purposeful.

Titania Jordan (35:13)

Right.

Nikki Petrosi (35:14)

And he did get a reminder from the judge a couple times just to answer the question that was asked. There was also a lot of objections from Mehta's attorney that interrupted the flow as well and was distracting. And so it was, it was purposeful, it was strategic to be doing all of those things to take away from the power of the testimony. But that said, there was a lot in there. There was a lot of revelations. We saw him for who he truly is. We saw him making choices that were bad for kids, knowing that it would be bad for kids. And that's the extremely important thing we need to take away. Now we're going to move to Thursday, where we heard from a whistleblower, a meta whistleblower, Brian Boland. And I think there was strategy in placing Brian Boland right after Mark Zuckerberg makes all these claims in order to refute them. So Brian Boland worked at Facebook for 11 years, starting in 2009-2020. He was mainly in advertising, but also in partnerships for the last few years. He left in 2020 after raising concerns about how bad the algorithm was for the world. And he got a snarky response from Zuckerberg at the time. So then he quits and he walked away from up to $15 million invested stock.

Sarah Gardner (36:28)

Wow, that's a Lot.

Nikki Petrosi (36:29)

I mean, he was there when Facebook went public. Yeah. So he did get a payout which he is now using to help businesses in different areas of the world. And so he's, he's doing great things with him and his wife. They have their own organization. But I'm going to share now kind of some highlights about his testimony. The first one being that their age verification technology was the best in the business, so way better than all the other companies. But they were age verifying for ad purposes, for advertising, which was where he was working. But they didn't seem to be using that technology to remove underage users. They were using it to target with ads. He talked a lot about that algorithm being addictive, which we've, we've talked about already in the episode, but that the algorithm is built to be scrolling as long as possible to serve us more ads, which is the number one way that they make money. And Brian Bolan said, quote, algorithms don't eat, they don't sleep, they don't care. They are relentless in pursuit of their goal to keep you scrolling. Now, Brian was really effective in a lot of those talking points. Then he was cross examined by Cynthia Jones of the Meta Attorney team. And I have a tagline for her too. It's I'm not picking on you, but. And then she goes in with some kind of nasty or below the belt hit. And she did it a lot with Brian Boland, I'm not picking on you. But she really was going on and on about trying to discredit him, saying he's not part of the leadership team or the safety team or the research team or the engineering team. So for him to speak to their goals or the way the algorithm works, she was just trying to invalidate his statements, which I believe was completely ineffective. And I think the jury was not swayed by that. So overall, Brian was a great witness. He had the jury engaged, even laughing at times. He was super effective at communicating his points. And I want to say thank you to Brian for doing this. He's not getting anything out of it and honestly probably receives more flack than anything for putting himself in this position. But it is so needed and we are grateful. Almost done with the week. So we had our last hour, which we met Dr. John Chandler, who is a witness called by Mark lanier, plaintiff attorney. Dr. John Chandler is a data science expert and a mathematician, amongst many other titles who has worked in the cross section of tech and marketing and data analysis. So he started to educate us about how these companies make money off of us through ads and the mathematical kind of equation and incentive of getting us to stay online as long as possible. There was an example stated, you know, Meta makes money off of, in Kaylee's case, getting her to spend as much time as possible one day, spending 16 hours on Instagram rather than limiting her time. It's more effective for Meta to keep kids like Haley on as long as possible. And so we got to hear about an hour of this testimony. And he will begin again on Monday morning with questioning from Mark Lanier and then cross examination. Okay, so that wraps this up for the week. Today is Friday. No court today. We are home recording this episode. And now let's go into a section we call Moments that Mattered, talking about what stood out to us this week.

Sarah Gardner (39:45)

The moment to me that I will never forget was walking out of the corner courtroom with the families at the lunch break, and we had decided that we had to do a gaggle reporter press conference situation because the press was so eager to talk to all the Survivor parents and get their reactions to being in the room with Mark that it was just gonna be overwhelming for everyone. They were just sort of, like, approached. And so I'll never forget, but seeing this incredible lineup of Survivor parents who we've all come to love and adore as human beings, standing there in front of, like, what looked like the largest group of press I've ever seen gathered for anything related to online child safety other than the Senate judiciary hearing in 2024. I was just thinking, yes, listen to what they have to say, world. Here are the real people who have paid the price because of people like Mark's decisions. And I want you to hear what they're gonna say. I want you to hear what they have to say. And it just was, like, in some ways, so hopeful to see, like, 14 microphones gathered together in front of those parents and just that row of cameras, to me, we will win in the court of public opinion around this case, regardless of the outcome.

Nikki Petrosi (41:12)

And I want to call out Tammy Rodriguez here, too, because Tammy lost her daughter Selena at 11 years old to suicide after experiencing so many different social media harms. And Kaylee's story is so similar to Selena's. Kaylee could have been Selena, and Tammy was actually one of the two parent survivors who got into the courtroom, one of the two on the Zuckerberg Z Day. And so that was really meaningful. And then we got to spend a lot of time with Tammy this week.

Parent Survivor (e.g., Tammy Rodriguez or Felina's mother) (41:41)

I'm here for my daughter Felina, who we lost when she was 11 years old. In 2021 to suicide due to social media harms.

Nikki Petrosi (41:49)

So you might get in today depending on the lottery system.

Parent Survivor (e.g., Tammy Rodriguez or Felina's mother) (41:51)

Right, right.

Nikki Petrosi (41:52)

How are you going to feel in there?

Parent Survivor (e.g., Tammy Rodriguez or Felina's mother) (41:54)

Well, like I was saying with the other parents, I'll say it's a feeling of excitement because we're finally here where they said we would never be. But it's also kind of a scary feeling to hear what they knew they were doing to the kids. And so many of us here, we're here to support Kaylee and we're gonna do this.

Nikki Petrosi (42:13)

We stand with families.

Parent Survivor (e.g., Tammy Rodriguez or Felina's mother) (42:14)

Yes, we do stand with families always.

Sarah Gardner (42:16)

The butterfly is like a symbol that became really important to many of the parent survivors. And so on Mark Zuckerberg's day, those of us, the parents and those of us who were supporting them all wore butterfly stickers and pins because we felt like it was important to ground ourselves in our.

Nikki Petrosi (42:34)

Why Another moment that mattered. For me, that was huge. What happened in the courtroom during Zuckerberg's portion. And it was this banner that was brought out by Mark Lanier and his team. And it was not all, but a lot of the pictures that Kaylie had posted to Instagram over the years, many of them heavily filtered selfies of herself. And they rolled out this banner that was nearly 40ft long, several feet tall, with each individual small little image that she had posted. I think it was over 3,500 images. And just the visual of seeing that, how much time and effort she had put into putting out this filtered version of herself that in the end caused her to feel body dysmorphia and anxiety and depression and just feel bad about herself. That visual moment was huge. And I actually caught up with Mark Lanier about this moment in front of the courthouse.

Mark Lanier (43:26)

So the banner was photographs of all of the posts on Instagram from Kaylee. And I say all. It wasn't all of them, but it was thousands of them. It was 35ft long. And it just showed her throughout a decade of her life, spending that time on Instagram.

Nikki Petrosi (43:46)

Right. And a lot of them were filtered, is that right?

Mark Lanier (43:49)

A number of them were filtered, some with goofy filters, which we think are fun and great, but a number of them cosmetic filters as well.

Nikki Petrosi (43:57)

We have to talk about the smart glasses situation. Actually, my cousin brought this up to me last night. So this is something that hit the headlines. And that was. It came to me when I was in the courtroom right after our morning break, and the judge called everyone's attention and very seriously said, it is the order of the court that anyone wearing Smart glasses needs to take them off. If you have recorded something in this case courtroom, it must be deleted and you will be held in contempt of this court. She's like, this is very serious. And we were like, who's got smart glasses on? We had no clue for most of the day. And then we found out, yeah, I

Sarah Gardner (44:33)

wonder who alerted her, do you know what I mean? Like, who figured it out? Maybe there's security or something.

Nikki Petrosi (44:39)

Someone must have had eagle eyes because they kind of look like regular glasses. I mean, I wouldn't have known. But then we start seeing headlines of Mark Zuckerberg walking up with his entourage, this man and this woman, and there's arrows pointing in the picture, in the news article to their glasses.

Sarah Gardner (44:57)

Did they do it? Okay, so my first thought was like, oh, my God, this is so dumb. They're doing it for marketing reasons. Or, you know, because a lot of the meta people do walk around with the glasses. They're trying to sell them, they're trying to make them cool.

Titania Jordan (45:12)

But then.

Sarah Gardner (45:12)

And then I just had the thought of, like, this does. It does seem a little more sinister than that. Because they've gotta know that you can't wear those into the courtroom. Or, I don't know, it was concerning. And then what's really interesting is there's been a lot of chatter now both about how uncool the glasses are in general, but also how scary they are because they can record everything around them. I also was made aware that the glasses may or may not be being used by bad people to go into public spaces where kids are and record kids.

Nikki Petrosi (45:50)

This is a. This is a dangerous product, first of all.

Sarah Gardner (45:53)

So, like, a light goes on when they're recording, but there's apparently easy ways around that to disable it. So, you know, the irony of all of it is in a trial about the safety and security of their products, they're bringing in another product that's clearly unsafe. Feels like a wild advertisement against your, like, what you're trying to, you know, your moral high ground of, like, you being a safe and productive company now or whatever. It just feels very counterintuitive to the narrative you're trying to have Latch.

Nikki Petrosi (46:27)

And this may seem sort of a conspiracy type thought, but this is a private courtroom. There's absolutely no filming, no photos, any of it. Because they want to protect the anonymity of both Kaylee, but also the jury. This is a super anonymous jury. They don't want their names and information getting out to public. But also the defendants, Meta and YouTube are not allowed to know who those jurors are because these companies have trillions of data points on these people and can sway the arguments to convince them that they're innocent in some way. And so was Zuckerberg's team sneakily taking images of jurors to take back to the company and be able to get all this information on them? I mean, it sounds crazy, but I don't know.

Sarah Gardner (47:16)

Was it true that some of the jurors asked for masks after that?

Nikki Petrosi (47:20)

So before the jurors came in, after lunch, now they. There was an announcement from. From the court staff saying that some of the jury is going to be wearing masks. There was only two that were wearing masks, so it wasn't a large number of them. But I think maybe they were worried about their privacy. One important moment that matters and is super relevant to this case is a new report that dropped this week. Parents like Sarah and I are following this case. We're worried about our kids and these very same companies. This is not just about Cayley. There's an argument from Meta that some of the harms that Caylee suffered or some of the things that they were doing have been fixed, that their products are better now. And that begs the question, can we prove it? Are kids today facing the same risks? So this report was created by Bark Technologies, and we brought in the CMO of Bark, Titania Jordan to tell More.

Titania Jordan (48:12)

Over 2025, we analyzed over 11.1 billion data points across children's connected accounts and devices. Texts that are coming in or going out, posts that are being made on Instagram, screenshots that are taken from things shared on Snapchat, comments, DMs. It's basically a digital signal. Any digital signal that's taking place on a child's device or within the accounts that Bark is connected to. We're analyzing the rate at which children are encountering problematic content and people. It's just so wild that this is coming out at the same time as the big trials are taking place. The top platforms that it had confirmed grooming in 2025, number one was Snapchat. Number two was Instagram owned by Meta. The top platforms for confirmed risky contact, number one, Snapchat. Number two, Roblox number three, Instagram owned by Meta. The top five apps flagged for depression are Tumblr's, number one, again, followed right behind by Instagram. Yet it's still happening despite Meta claiming that it has more stringent protections.

Sarah Gardner (49:30)

One of the big sort of tactics argument this week in court has been Mark Just alluding to the fact that, like, oh, that was an issue and now we've changed it or that was a problem and now we've addressed it it, or we used to track growth and now we don't. And so he's relying a lot on the idea that the systems have been fixed now. But we know as recently as this past fall there all these reports came out, including one that Arturo worked on with Fairplay and other nonprofits that tested all of the solves and 47 of the 53 safeguards they said they had in place didn't work or were also gone.

Titania Jordan (50:12)

Their parents, Adam Aseri, Mark Zuckerberg, they are parents. They have kids. And yet according to everything that we have read and heard, they continue to look the other way. So at one point we had a great deal of access to analyze Instagram and they revoked it, citing very, very BS circumstances for like, well, we're not going to allow this, this anymore. And our CTO wrote them and said, you realize by doing this, you're going to put millions of children at risk because you are not protecting them adequately. You know, just a reminder, Bark is alerting parents to suicidal ideation, to predation, to disordered eating, to graphic sexual content, to just the most horrific things that exist on their platforms. And so you mean to tell me you are going to revoke this access that is saving children's lives? Drug dealers. That's what you're doing. And you could tell through what they said they were, the person who was making the call wasn't in control.

Nikki Petrosi (51:24)

And it's so important that we test it. When companies like Meta announcements safety features, and we have lots of organizations doing that. And then we also have the validation or the, the devastation of Bark's report showing us what is actually happening to children because of their failure to do what they said.

Titania Jordan (51:45)

These are not small numbers. In fact, yes, these are numbers, but these are children. These are children. Keep that in mind. This is not data. This. These are humans.

Nikki Petrosi (51:56)

Right? For every data point of those 11 billion is an experience. A child had a bad experience. Moving on to another moment that was huge this week is the national PTA ending their partnership with Meta. And I read the quote from the, I believe the president of the national pta. She said, as you may have seen, there has been heightened public scrutiny and legal cases involving companies, including Meta, regarding digital safety that have created new challenges that have proved both time consuming and difficult for the national pta. And so they've ended their longtime partnership with Meta.

Sarah Gardner (52:34)

That's why that's literally.

Nikki Petrosi (52:36)

How lame is that quote? Like, who approved that? How about because they're a bad predatory company that are bad for children, More

Sarah Gardner (52:47)

onus on their decision to partner with them in the first place. So I guess it's. It's a way of sort of neutrally getting out of it without admitting that maybe that was an error. Look, if I were them, I would say this. Like everyone else, we were also misled by big tech about what their intentions were in, like, education and school environments. And while we thought they were genuine in their desire to help, you know, lift up education systems, what we realized is they were using it as sales channels for their products. And now that we know that, we're cutting ties a lot of people for a long time, partnering with these companies was like a good. There was a tech for good moment where it was like partnering with them was seen as, like, being innovative and forward and a good thing. And so I don't blame anyone who, like, had partnered with them in the past. It's like, now that we know what we know, what does it look like going forward?

Nikki Petrosi (53:48)

They have to be careful about what they say because they still partner and receive funding from within, from Discord, Google, who's a defendant in this case, and TikTok. So they need to drop all those partnerships. This is all the same predatory attack that addicts and allows harm to children.

Sarah Gardner (54:07)

I also wanted to point out that Wednesday morning when we all had to stand out there for many, many hours, it was, like, beautiful and sunny. It was cold, but it wasn't raining. And it basically rained the entire week except for those few hours. And wow. Yeah, there's enough of those instances now for me. I know the parents talk about this a lot, about, like, their angels looking down and like, guiding, shepherding and stewarding them through this. There have been enough of those moments now where it's just like, how did we get this beautiful day and how did. Why did this work out in our favor and how did this happen? That I really do, that this is like a mission for justice. And I. And so the truth, justice, accountability, like that mantra for me, coming out of this week feels so on point. We need the truth about what the companies did. We need justice for the families who experienced it in the worst ways. And we need accountability so it doesn't happen to more families in the future.

Nikki Petrosi (55:00)

Yeah. And I'm thinking again about the moment where all of the parents stood in front of those, I don't know, two dozen media outlets. And I've been talking about how it's like feels like families versus these companies. But I feel like now it's turning into, like, the whole world versus meta and YouTube or even Snapchat and TikTok. Like, it's the whole world that has their back. Our back. Kaylee's back. Now we have a quick section. I don't have a lot here this week, but it's called Lawyers Said. What? I have been listening to these attorneys talk for many, many hours, and I suddenly realized that they're referring to Kaylee in different ways. We used to say KGM because it was completely anonymous. And then when the trial started, the judge started saying, calling her Kaylee, and I was like, okay, her name is Kaylee. That's great to know. I think it's important to be calling her by her first name and have that personal touch. And now that the trial has been moving forward, I noticed that Kaylee's attorney, Mark Lanier, calls her Kaylee. That's her name. We can use it. Meta's attorneys refer to her still as KGM or Ms. GM. And then I also noticed. Yeah, never Haley. And then I also noticed that Zuckerberg almost never. I want to say never says kids or children. He always says people. So he'll say, like, people under 13 aren't allowed on our platform. People under 13. And then I've seen it in their messaging, and I'm wondering if it's purposeful to try to, like, dehumanize the actual people. Children. Children. The kids that are being harmed.

Sarah Gardner (56:34)

I just think it's really weird to say people under 13. There's just a really strange phrase. So. Yeah, it's hard to imagine it's not purposeful for some reason or to just. It's a brain cognition connection thing there. He's trying to just, like, decouple D link anything he says from the word child or children. Right.

Nikki Petrosi (56:58)

It's gotta be purposeful. Who says people under 13?

Sarah Gardner (57:00)

No one says people under 13. Sorry. Doesn't happen.

Nikki Petrosi (57:05)

And he said it about 16 times. So it was so purposeful that he

Sarah Gardner (57:09)

was saying, like, bros below 13 would be more normal sounding.

Nikki Petrosi (57:17)

Wow. Yeah. No, let's call Kayla. Let's start calling Kaylee Kaylee. Come on, guys. She's a human. Kids are kids.

Sarah Gardner (57:24)

PM is also really weird.

Nikki Petrosi (57:31)

Next week in court, there was some shuffling because we had that. That day, Unexpected day off last week. But we're gonna continue hearing from the Data science expert Dr. John Chandler on Monday morning. Then we're gonna move to Christos Good row, who is a current YouTube employee. He leads a 700 person engineering team for the Core Experiences Group at YouTube. It's interesting that they're calling someone that currently works at YouTube that the plaintiff side is calling someone currently at YouTube. So I'm fascinated to see how that goes down so soon after that. We're going to hear from meta whistleblower Arturo Behara. We mentioned him earlier in the episode. He's a really important witness in this case. His research and his experience is extremely important to Kaylee's experience and so I'm excited to hear from Arturo. I want to note here that we were supposed to be hearing from YouTube CEO Neal Mohan. Now that's no longer happening and the reason is because he was not CEO when Kaylee was addicted to YouTube using YouTube. He didn't become CEO until 2023. So this update about not having him there is just purely about timing and they're going to have those different YouTube executives like Christus Good row instead. Next week we're back in the courtroom as the trial continues. We are going to be translating what we hear into meaningful takeaways for parents and like Sarah and I. Because when it comes to these companies that are in our kids pockets and in their schools, we need to be paying attention. Please Share this episode subscribe on wherever you listen. Join our email list@trollingtodeath.com heat and remember in this fight where it's the biggest companies in the world versus families, we stand with families.

Mark Lanier (59:18)

My daughters are so strong wrong in this as well. Rachel's the one who talked me into doing this.

Parent Survivor (e.g., Tammy Rodriguez or Felina's mother) (59:23)

I'm sorry.

Sarah Gardner (59:23)

We can't give back what was lost.

Parent Survivor (e.g., Tammy Rodriguez or Felina's mother) (59:25)

Everything you do is being seen and you give strength to so many families every day. You give strength and hope and love to these families. Don't ever forget them.

Mark Lanier (59:33)

But we're trying hard.