Social Media Is a Defective Product

OA1247 - Should social media companies be held responsible for the addiction and other harms their features and algorithms have caused to users? A California jury thought so this week, and in this episode recorded within hours of this historic verdict--and the day after another similar win in New Mexico--we examine the legal basis for this suit and what this might mean for thousands of similar legal actions now pending against Meta, TikTok, YouTube, and others around the U.S. Matt also explains why Trump is sending ICE agents to US airports, and how a little-noticed new addition to an existing DHS program has turned some state and local cops into immigrant bounty hunters. 

Finally, we go a little deeper than usual in today’s footnote to honor the sacrifice of a federal judge in the Southern District of New York who read more than 6,000 pages of “romantasy” fiction to determine as a matter of law that a book about a part-witch/part-shapeshifter/part-demon who moves from San Diego to Alaska after the death of a parent to meet a hot guy with mysterious powers while discovering her own in urban Anchorage is not “substantially similar to a discerning ordinary reader”  to a book about a half-witch/half-gargoyle who moves from San Diego to Alaska after the death of a parent to meet a hot guy with mysterious powers while discovering her own in a remote Gothic castle.

1. Complaint in K.G.M. v. Meta, filed April 28, 2025 in LA Superior Court

2. Exclusive: ICE’s Bounty Hunters, Ken Klippenstein (March 24, 2026)

3. Leaked spreadsheet of ICE 287(g) payouts [PDF]

4. Complaint in Freeman v. Wolff, filed May 23, 2022 in SDNY

5. Summary judgment order in Freeman v. Wolff, March 16, 2026 (McMahon, J.)

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