Pop some popcorn. Put some butter. Add some salt. Because opportunists (politicians) are pointing their muskets at villains (tech bros), using children’s welfare as the ammunition. In case you were wondering, I am talking about the battle between New Mexico AG and Silicon Valley’s villain in chief.
The next bout is on May 4. So mark your calendars. Why?
This week two verdicts came in quick succession . First, a New Mexico jury ordered Meta to pay $375 million for knowingly enabling child predators on Instagram and Facebook. Then, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and YouTube negligent for designing platforms that addicted a young woman who first used YouTube at age six and Instagram at nine.
On the surface this is big win for ambulance chasers. However it could be much bigger if politicians actually have the best intentions that go beyond winning the next elections. History tells me, they are what I said they are, opportunists.
Let’s be honest about what New Mexico AG is. He is an elected official who identified the most despised man in American technology, a category that has never been more unpopular, and filed suit. Zuckerberg is the perfect patsy. Ian Fleming couldn’t have created a more perfect caricature of a villain for our post social age. Weird. Awkwardly dressed to appear cool. Black AR glasses.
Rich, arrogant, visibly indifferent to the damage his products caused, and now on record in two courtrooms defending decisions his own safety teams told him were harming children. The internal documents that came out in both trials showed the same pattern: engineers and safety researchers raising alarms for years, recommendations made and ignored, Zuckerberg choosing growth. None of this is new. I wrote about Facebook’s growth-at-any-cost DNA back in 2018 . The pattern has not changed. Only the courtroom has.