LS
Lemonade Stand
Morning Show
THE ABC CASE:
ADDICTING BRAINS
The trial of "KGM" begins. Lawyers argue that Meta and Google "engineered addiction" in children's brains, using internal docs that liken Instagram to "a drug."
Broadcast: "The Digital Pusher"
[HOST]: Lanier is taking them to task. He’s calling it the "ABC" case—Addicting the Brains of Children. He's showing emails where Meta staff literally called themselves "pushers."
[CO-HOST]: And the defense is hitting back with data. They're telling the jury that the plaintiff, KGM, only spent about a minute and 14 seconds a day on those "infinite scroll" Shorts. Is that an addiction or just a quick scroll?
[HOST]: But then you look at "Project Myst." Meta's own researchers found that kids with existing trauma were the most likely to get hooked. They knew who was vulnerable.
The Evidence
Internal "Pusher" Emails
Plaintiffs presented communication where a Meta employee stated Instagram is "like a drug" and they are "basically pushers."
Project Myst
A Meta study of 1,000 teens revealing that those with "adverse events" (stress/trauma) were significantly more vulnerable to design-led addiction.
The Casino Analogy
Internal Google documents were shown comparing their engagement products to casino mechanics used to keep gamblers at the table.
The Counter-Data
Defense Case: KGM User Data
"It’s not social media addiction when it’s not social media and it’s not an addiction." — Luis Li
The defense argues that KGM's 10,000 pages of medical records lack a single diagnosis of YouTube addiction, and that videos were often used for sleep and anxiety management.
