The Vergecast: "Meta's court losses could be just the beginning"

Date: March 27, 2026
Hosts: Nilay Patel, David Pierce
Theme:
This episode unpacks Meta’s major court defeats and what they mean for the future of social media accountability, tech regulation, and free speech. Nilay and David dissect two landmark lawsuits against Meta and YouTube, the fallout from “bellwether” cases, and why the tide might be turning against Big Tech in the courtroom and society at large. They also hit other tech news, from Apple’s 50th anniversary and personal gadget adventures to music streaming fraud and the messiness of AI integration.

Episode Overview

The core of the episode explores two significant lawsuits: one in California, where Meta and YouTube stand accused of product design causing harm – not just content moderation failures – and another in New Mexico with similar themes. The hosts analyze what these trial outcomes mean for Section 230 protections, user agency, the difference between content and design liability, and the public’s growing antipathy toward social media giants. They also cover a spectrum of tech news, from Apple’s legacy to regulatory absurdities and AI missteps.

1. Personal & Tech Updates

[01:31–05:54] – Airport Chaos and AI Meets Law

• Nilay and David discuss personal travel chaos caused by political brinkmanship affecting TSA operations, highlighting how national politics directly disrupt everyday tech experiences.
• David shares that he’s heading to Chicago to keynote the American Bar Association Tech Show, focusing on intersections of AI and the law, and how AI is poised to disrupt legal systems.

“A lot of people react to the law like it’s software code … But instead of a computer, there’s a judge who’s 800 years old whose brain has been cooked by Facebook memes. And those are different things.” — David Pierce [06:33]

2. Apple’s 50th Anniversary & Gadget Debates

[08:45–15:12] – Apple Nostalgia, Product Rankings, and DIY Monitors

• The Verge is running extensive Apple 50th coverage, with a live, ELO-system-powered ranker that lets people rank the 50 best Apple products, accompanied by an inside look at how the staff battled over what should make the list.
• Both hosts reflect on specific products and the emotional weight of ranking; there’s banter around the iMac G4, Mac Mini, and other favorites and snubs.
• David embarks on a DIY project to convert his 5K iMac into a monitor, illustrating the depth of Apple fan culture and the proliferation of gadget hacking.

“I can’t. You know, there’s—there’s no getting around that. But you get to see all those matchups together. The hard part was making the list of 50 products.” — David Pierce [11:37]

3. Meta’s Major Court Losses: The Legal Shift Against Social Media

[28:21–55:39] – Lawsuits, Section 230, Product Design Liability

Key Segments

• [28:21]: Big news is the jury verdicts against Meta/Instagram and YouTube, cracking open the potential for a “floodgate” of lawsuits.

• [29:05]: Bellwether nature of the cases: “Bunch of state attorneys general … said what are the cases we can bring … that have the best facts, the most sympathetic plaintiffs….” — Nilay

• [32:04]: Heartbreaking testimony from parents blaming platforms for tragedies:

  “I saw Mark Zuckerberg’s curly hair. My son had curly hair before he killed himself. It was beautiful. Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t deserve to have his hair.” — Parent, quoted by Lauren Feiner [32:04]

• [33:07]–[38:39]:

  • The legal maneuver: lawsuits were about product design, not content, sidestepping Section 230’s speech protections.
  • Analogy: If a print magazine cut you, you wouldn’t sue over speech but product design.

• [39:10]: Historical precedent — Lemon v. Snap (Snapchat’s speed filter) — set the stage for these successful suits.

• [40:00+]: Discussion of how algorithms, notifications, and product incentives can be legally distinct from content moderation.

• [41:16]: Google/YouTube’s defense — “YouTube is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site” — dismissed as absurd by the hosts.

• [42:07+]: Public opinion has turned, but lack of true market competition makes regulatory, legal, and political remedies more urgent.

• [48:19]–[54:03]: Regulatory tension: Government speech regulation is dangerous, but unfettered tech power—enabled by Section 230—is equally untenable.

“At some point it just enters, like, ludicrous zone where everything is speech. Like anything that happens on a computer is speech and no one can ever be accountable for it. And there has to be some recalibration of that.” — Nilay Patel [54:17]

Memorable Quotes

• “These companies are confusing user downloads with quality.” — Nilay Patel [95:51]
• “You can vote with your votes. Shaky track record… You can vote with your dollars. I actually think that would be the preferred outcome… But there’s not a competitor to YouTube that’s run by Apple.” — Nilay Patel [44:43]

4. Lightning Round: Regulatory Absurdities, Spotify Fraud, and AI Fails

[57:30–101:45]

Brendan Carr Is a Dummy (Podcast within a Podcast)

[58:55–73:57]

• The hosts call out FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr for regulatory hypocrisy — both bending and enforcing rules to suit ideology, especially about media mergers and the headline-grabbing but functionally pointless “ban” on foreign-made routers.
• Nilay details Carr’s contradictory logic on mergers and speech regulation.
• Router ban described as “a shakedown” with no genuine security benefit.

"It's just super unclear what any of this will actually accomplish. Except he got a headline saying all routers have to be made outside of the United States." — Nilay Patel [66:38]

Spotify Fraud and Automation at Scale

[74:04–79:54]

• The case of Michael Smith, who used AI to create hundreds of thousands of songs, then used bots to auto-stream them and claim $1.2 million/year in royalties — as an example of digital arbitrage and the scale of automation-based fraud on platforms.
• Similar schemes seen in social video — manipulating engagement through bots targeting competitors, not just oneself.

Supreme Court: Piracy & Platform Liability

[80:27–82:25]

• The Supreme Court rules that Cox, the ISP, isn’t responsible for copyright infringement by users. The court draws a parallel with earlier P2P and copyright fights.
• “Cox simply provided Internet access, which was used for many purposes other than copyright infringement.” — Justice Clarence Thomas [81:53]

Chatbots & AI App Overload

[83:31–89:57]

• OpenAI, Google, Apple rush to centralize AI features into super-apps (like standalone “Siri” apps), but all struggle to offer meaningful consumer use cases beyond enterprise “software brain” automation.

• David’s now-iconic Slack message:

  “The people do not yearn for automation.” [87:15, 101:45]

• AI only makes sense to those with "software brain" (people who think in loops and automation); most consumers don’t relate and find little value.

5. AI & Ethics: The Grammarly "Expert Voices" Scandal

[90:22–101:45]

• Nilay interviews Shishir Mehrotra, CEO of Grammarly, about their controversial “Expert Voices” feature that allowed users to generate text “as” real people (including Nilay and David) — an ethical minefield around identity, attribution, and creator rights.
• Neither the company nor the sector seems to have clear answers about permission, compensation, or long-term consequences. The issue is emblematic of the AI industry’s speed-over-caution mentality.
• The hosts critique “software brain” thinking — that humanity and taste can be reduced to rules and code.

“If you can write down what your taste is, it’s not taste.” — Nilay Patel [101:03]

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On Meta’s legal vulnerability

  “The floodgates to sue these companies … are now wide open.” — Nilay Patel [29:05]

• On product design vs. content

  “We’re not liable for our product design because it contains the speech of other people — to me, it has never passed the smell test.” — Nilay Patel [38:23]

• On AI’s failure to connect with consumers

  “The people do not yearn for automation.” — David Pierce [87:15]

• On tech CEOs missing the public mood

  “I think the tech industry really misunderstands how much people dislike them.” — Nilay Patel [42:07]

• On the rush of AI product launches

  “I think there is so much of that happening in AI right now. The money is so big, the stakes are so high — there is a sense ... that if you take two seconds to sit down and think, you will get left behind.” — David Pierce [94:12]

Conclusion & Next Week

• The episode ends with a teaser for upcoming Apple coverage (“Apple 50” and Version History with John Gruber), and with Nilay prepping David to go catch his flight after a marathon session of tech news, legal analysis, and cultural critique.

Takeaways for Listeners

• Recent legal verdicts indicate a real turning point for tech platforms, as courts find ways to hold companies liable for product design rather than user content.
• The courts—not Congress or market competition—are becoming the main arena for tech accountability.
• The public’s increasingly negative view of social media, combined with a lack of alternatives, drives legal and regulatory turbulence.
• AI continues to race ahead of ethics and genuine user need; most people do not want more automation, yet tech companies keep trying to automate personal life.
• In a world where “taste” cannot be coded, the limits of software are becoming more apparent, even as platforms rush to AI all the things.

For More

• Listen to the full episode for deep dives, inside jokes, pop culture riffs, and the uniquely irreverent, insightful tone that defines The Vergecast.
• Check out the “Apple 50” ranker and related reporting on The Verge.
• Read Lauren Feiner’s courtroom reporting and Addie Robertson’s tech policy coverage for more on the cases discussed.

End of summary.