LIVE UPDATES: Jury reaches a verdict in social media trial in Los Angeles

2 hours ago

Social media addiction trial attorney reportedly uses candy jar to show net worth of Big Tech giants

Jurors are deliberating now to determine punitive damages against Meta and YouTube.

The judge told the jury they can consider the total stockholders equity as the valuation of each company – that was determined to be $415 billion for Google and $217 billion for Meta.

Plaintiff lead attorney Mark Lanier pulled out a jar with 415 M&Ms in it. He took out a few of them to demonstrate to jurors that taking out just a few isn’t even felt by the companies.

“Do you want to be heard in this room? The city of Los Angeles? All the way up in Palo Alto in their board room? These companies arent just the wealthiest – they’re the most influential and powerful. They’ll know within 3 seconds exactly what your verdict is when it’s spoken out in court,” said Lanier. “I think about the influence you have on future conduct. How should these companies behave when it comes to children. That’s what we get to deal with now.”

Both Luis Li (YouTube) and Paul Schmidt (Meta) used their time to show the jurors all the steps the companies had taken to promote safety. Li also personally apologized to KGM on behalf of YouTube.

“We are sorry or the things you’ve suffered. We at [YouTube] truly truly hope there have been things about [YouTube] that have allowed to you express yourself and do cool things,” said Li.

Schmidt reiterated the jury instruction that the punitive damages are only meant for Kaley and not to represent any other cases.

In his rebuttal, Lanier called the safety features Band-Aids.

“The last thing they want is for you to be held accountable for what they’ve done. Those instructions talk about how you should discourage and punish them for what they’ve done wrong. Read those instructions and tell them safety should be their first goal,” Lanier said.

Reporting from FOX Business’ Marcus Mulick.