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A trial focused on the dangers of child sexual exploitation on social media and whether Meta misrepresented the safety of its platforms is set to start in New Mexico with opening statements Monday.It’s the first stand-alone trial from state prosecutors in a stream of lawsuits against major social media companies, including Meta, over harm to children, and one that is likely to highlight explicit online content and its effects.New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez sued Meta in 2023. His team built the case by posing as kids through social media accounts, then documenting the arrival of sexual solicitations as well as the response by Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.Prosecutors say they’ll provide evidence and testimony that Meta’s algorithms and account features enticed and addicted young people to social media, while also creating a “breeding ground” for predators who target children for sexual exploitation. Prosecutors allege Meta failed to disclose what it knew about those harmful effects, in violation of state consumer protection laws. Meta also is accused of creating a public nuisance.“Meta knowingly exposes children to the twin dangers of sexual exploitation and mental health harm,” the lawsuit states. “Meta’s motive for doing so is profit.”Meta denies any legal violations and says prosecutors are cherry-picking evidence to make sensationalist arguments. On Sunday, Meta called the state’s investigation “ethically compromised” in its use of child photos on proxy accounts, delays in reporting child sexual abuse material and the disposal of data from devices used in the investigation, in social media posts on X by company spokesperson Andy Stone.The company says lawsuits are attempting to place the blame for teen mental health struggles on social media companies in a way that oversimplifies matters. Meta says it has a longstanding commitment to supporting young people, highlighting a steady addition of account settings and tools including safety features that give teens more information about the person they’re chatting with and content restrictions based on PG-13 movie ratings.“For over a decade, we’ve listened to parents, worked with experts and law enforcement, and conducted in-depth research to understand the issues that matter most,” the company said in a statement. “We’re proud of the progress we’ve made.”It’s unclear whether Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg will testify at trial. New Mexico limits the ability to compel out-of-state witnesses to testify in person, while prosecutors can present testimony by Zuckerberg from a deposition.Personal opinions of Zuckerberg and evolving attitudes toward social media loomed over jury selection from a pool of more than 200 residents of Santa Fe County, including several educators, young adults who grew up with social media and others who never signed up.“Quite frankly, he’s the tech bro making money off of all of us,” one person said of Zuckerberg.An attorney for the state warned that there would be “very sensitive and very explicit material discussed in terms of safety to children” during the trial.More than 40 state attorneys general have filed lawsuits against Meta, claiming it is deliberately designing features that addict children to its platforms. The majority filed their lawsuits in federal court, and New Mexico’s case against Meta is the first to reach trial.Opening statements have been postponed in a bellwether trial underway in California against social video companies, including Meta’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube, that focuses on a 19-year-old who claims her use of social media from an early age addicted her to technology and exacerbated depression and suicidal thoughts. TikTok and Snapchat parent company Snap Inc. settled claims in the case.Torrez, a Democrat seeking reelection this year to a second term, has urged Meta to implement more effective age verification and remove bad actors from its platform. He’s also seeking changes to algorithms that can serve up harmful material and criticizing end-to-end privacy encryption that can prevent the monitoring of communications with children for safety. Morgan Lee, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
Even after the final whistle blew on the Seattle Seahawks 29-13 win over the New England Patriots, Rockets Super Bowl was far from over. Sure, the brand had a Super Bowl ad featuring Lady Gaga singing a Mr. Rogers classic, but that was just the beginning. At 8 p.m. ET, immediately after Rocket and Redfins Super Bowl spot aired, the brands released the first of six app-exclusive clues that would roll out over the next 48 hours for users to play a contest in order to win a million-dollar home. This last part of Rockets Super Bowl strategy is perhaps its most important because its not just focused on entertaining audiences or attracting their attention; its about recruiting their participation. Rocket CMO Jonathan Mildenhall told me last week that Super Bowl strategies must now have pre-game, in-game, and post-game stages, and participation was key. Were going to ensure that weve got eyeballs on the spot looking for the home, but its only after it airs that the first of six clues are given, and the remaining six clues are given over a 48-hour period to ensure that Rocket and Redfin are in the postgame conversation, Mildenhall said. So the new strategy that I would implore all marketers to be thinking about is youve got three stages of Super Bowl investment, and one of those stages has to be dominated by your audience participation. The Super Bowl is simultaneously a singular moment for advertisers, and a microcosm of the broader challenges facing brands every single day. Sure, its the biggest, most high profile collective cultural moment we have left, but it retains the same difficulty of standing out, making a mark, and really getting our attention as any other moment. As a result, more brands are working to get audiences involved in some way, shape or form, in order to break through all the noise. Heres a look at how four brands tackled participation in each stage of the Super Bowl. Pre-game prep Comcast Xfinitys Jurassic Park-themed spot is one of the most Super Bowl-y things a brand could do. Bringing back a beloved franchise classicincluding de-aged versions of the original castand putting its own quirky twist on it to tie in its product is not exactly rocket science. Its obvious people will love it. But how do you make sure they really love it and remember it? Comcasts chief growth officer for connectivity and platforms Jon Geiselman says that the Super Bowl used to be a single, high-stakes moment, now its a runway. Audiences dont just show up on game day anymore, says Geiselman. For marketers, thats changed the job. The ad isnt the finish line; its the centerpiece of a much longer story. Created with agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners (GS&P), Comcast Xfinitys longer story included an in-game NBA take-over at Phillys Xfinity Arena during the Sixers-Bucks game on January 26. Then, in San Francisco in the week leading up to the game there were Jurassic Park Lyft Rides, where the brand turned some Lyft vehicles into the iconic Jurassic Park tour cars, had dinosaur projections light up the citys historic Hobart Building, a motion-sensored T. Rex billboard on Market Street, and taking Baby Tango raptor character outside of Universal Orlando to roam the city and engage with fans. View this post on Instagram GS&P creative director Jen Hart says the pre-game strategy was itself split into stages. The first thing out of the gate was taking down an NBA arena during primetime, with Reggie Miller and Noah Eagle offering commentary on live TV about what was unfolding, says Hart. The next day on social, we invited the world to bring the park back online with an alluring grand prize: a trip back to Jurassic Parks set in Hawaii. We then opened the doors to the parkincluding a lost commercial running on television for a fully functional Jurassic Park, as well as the original cast teasing our Super Bowl spot on social. In-game action Getting fans involved during the game is a unique challenge given theres, you know, an actual football game people are watching. But a good marketers job is to find the space, no matter how small, to squeeze in a compelling reason for us to pay attention. Three brands who worked in different ways to do that this year were Coinbase, OpenAI, and Kraft. OpenAI released three regional ads before the game, but saved its direct pitch to coders for the big game itself. CMO Kate Rouch says that not only was their ad aiming to be a rallying cry for builders to try its newest version of Codex, but it was littered with easter eggssmall signs within the adfor coders to find and use to get prizes and other goodies. Actions speak louder than words, so we’re offering Codex for free, and we have this point of view about building and making things, that anyone can do this, says Rouch. So this Easter egg, is actually tied to a behavior in Codex, and you have to participate in the product to unlock the merch. It’s just a small, simple thing, but we wanted to signal that this is about making things, and kind of lift up people who are going to do something. Crypto platform Coinbase had a lot to live up to. Under former CMO Rouch, the brand made a splash at the 2022 Super Bowl with a bouncing QR code, so current CMO Cat Ferdon knew they needed to continue that legacy of uniquely getting peoples attention. Her solution: why not get people singing karaoke? The Coinbase ad brilliantly mimicked old school karaoke machine screen to get viewers to sing-along with its adapted version of the Backstreet Boys 1997 hit Everybody. Coinbase vice-president of creative Joe Staples says that what makes the Super Bowl unique is that there are 120 million people actively watching ads. So you can choose to do the thing you normally do with more famous people, or you can take it as a time to talk to a nation, says Staples. Or you can just acknowledge that everyone’s had six beers and loads of wings, and are in the room with 15 friends watching a commercial. The participation goal here was to get people laughing and singing with each other. Ferdon says that its about carving out a moment, and making an event out of that moment. Ideally, we’re giving the audience something to participate in so that people in the room, wherever they’re watching, can feel like they’re a part of that event with us, she says. And that in itself is actually the spectacle. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Kraft Mac & Cheese (@kraft_macandcheese) Kraft Heinz didnt have an official big game spot for Mac & Cheese, but it did invest in a celebrity to get people participating during the game. The brand had comedian John Mulaney, who voices its ongoing Best Thing Ever campaign, to respond to every Super Bowl ad in real-timeincluding Coinbases karaokewith custom video ads during the big game on social. Kraft Heinz CMO Todd Kaplan says the point is to try and engage the audience where they are, specifically, on the second screen during the game. Listen, not all 50 plus ads are going to be home runs, he says. Its about finding the moments to come in a humorous way with a point of view for our brand and just drive a conversation, which is really what our job is as marketers. Post-game work This is perhaps the toughest Super Bowl nut to crack. Its also the most recent part of the game that brands have been trying to tap into. Rocket essentially decided to combine all the trappings of more traditional ad, pack it with an emotional punch, and then do its own version of DoorDash All The Ads. In 2024, DoorDash pulled off a Super Bowl hat-trick in that it had a creative idea that got attention and awareness right awaydelivering a lucky winner everything advertised during the gamewith the short-term pay off of actual DoorDash app downloads. It got more than eight million contest submissions and 11 billion impressions. With a clue to winning a million dollar home embedded in its Super Bowl ad, Mildenhall says that the contest will drive Redfin app downloadsyu need the app to enter the contestand ideally even provide a post-game boost to its commercial. I’m hoping that our ad becomes the most-viewed Super Bowl ad this year,” he says. “Because we’re driving people back to it six times so that they can identify which of the homes you’ve seen in the ad is actually available on Redfin tp win.
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E-Commerce
The world’s biggest social media companies face several landmark trials this year that seek to hold them responsible for harms to children who use their platforms. Opening arguments for the first, in Los Angeles County Superior Court, begin this week. Instagram’s parent company Meta and Google’s YouTube will face claims that their platforms deliberately addict and harm children. TikTok and Snap, which were originally named in the lawsuit, settled for undisclosed sums. This was only the first case there are hundreds of parents and school districts in the social media addiction trials that start today, and sadly, new families every day who are speaking out and bringing Big Tech to court for its deliberately harmful products, said Sacha Haworth, executive director of the nonprofit Tech Oversight Project. At the core of the case is a 19-year-old identified only by the initials KGM, whose case could determine how thousands of other, similar lawsuits against social media companies will play out. She and two other plaintiffs have been selected for bellwether trials essentially test cases for both sides to see how their arguments play out before a jury and what damages, if any, may be awarded, said Clay Calvert, a nonresident senior fellow of technology policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Its the first time the companies will argue their case before a jury, and the outcome could have profound effects on their businesses and how they will handle children using their platforms. KGM claims that her use of social media from an early age addicted her to the technology and exacerbated depression and suicidal thoughts. Importantly, the lawsuit claims that this was done through deliberate design choices made by companies that sought to make their platforms more addictive to children to boost profits. This argument, if successful, could sidestep the companies’ First Amendment shield and Section 230, which protects tech companies from liability for material posted on their platforms. Borrowing heavily from the behavioral and neurobiological techniques used by slot machines and exploited by the cigarette industry, Defendants deliberately embedded in their products an array of design features aimed at maximizing youth engagement to drive advertising revenue, the lawsuit says. Executives, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, are expected to testify at the trial, which will last six to eight weeks. Experts have drawn similarities to the Big Tobacco trials that led to a 1998 settlement requiring cigarette companies to pay billions in health care costs and restrict marketing targeting minors. Plaintiffs are not merely the collateral damage of Defendants products, the lawsuit says. They are the direct victims of the intentional product design choices made by each Defendant. They are the intended targets of the harmful features that pushed them into self-destructive feedback loops. The tech companies dispute the claims that their products deliberately harm children, citing a bevy of safeguards they have added over the years and arguing that they are not liable for content posted on their sites by third parties. Recently, a number of lawsuits have attempted to place the blame for teen mental health struggles squarely on social media companies, Meta said in a recent blog post. But this oversimplifies a serious issue. Clinicians and researchers find that mental health is a deeply complex and multifaceted issue, and trends regarding teens’ well-being aren’t clear-cut or universal. Narrowing the challenges faced by teens to a single factor ignores the scientific research and the many stressors impacting young people today, like academic pressure, school safety, socio-economic challenges and substance abuse. A Meta spokesperson said in a recent statement that the company strongly disagrees with the allegations outlined in the lawsuit and that it’s confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people. José Castaeda, a Google Spokesperson, said that the allegations against YouTube are simply not true. In a statement, he said, Providing young people with a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work. The case will be the first in a slew of cases beginning this year that seek to hold social media companies responsible for harming children’s mental well-being. A federal bellwether trial beginning in June in Oakland, California, will be the first to represent school districts that have sued social media platforms over harms to children. In addition, more than 40 state attorneys general have filed lawsuits against Meta, claiming it is harming young people and contributing to the youth mental health crisis by deliberately designing features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children to its platforms. The majority of cases filed their lawsuits in federal court, but some sued in their respective states. TikTok also faces similar lawsuits in more than a dozen states. In New Mexico, meanwhile, opening arguments begin Monday for trial on allegations that Meta and its social media platforms have failed to protect young users from sexual exploitation, following an undercover online investigation. Attorney General Raúl Torrez in late 2023 sued Meta and Zuckerberg, who was later dropped from the suit. Prosecutors have said that New Mexico is not seeking to hold Meta accountable for its content but rather its role in pushing out that content through complex algorithms that proliferate material that can be harmful, saying they uncovered internal documents in which Meta employees estimate that about 100,000 children every day are subjected to sexual harassment on the companys platforms. Meta denies the civil charges while accusing Torrez of cherry-picking select documents and making sensationalist arguments. The company says it has consulted with parents and law enforcement to introduce built-in protections to social media accounts, along with settings and tools for parents. Kaitlyn Huamani and Barbara Ortutay, AP technology writers Associated Press Writer Morgan Lee contributed to this story.
Category:
E-Commerce
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