A landmark lawsuit held Meta and Google accountable for designing addictive social media platforms that harm children. Plaintiff Kaley was awarded $6m after a jury found the companies liable for malice, oppression, or fraud. Lawyer Mark Lanier utilized AI in his "righteous case" against the tech giants.
Australia's December ban on social media for under-16s has sparked a global trend, with Indonesia, Malaysia, and Britain enacting similar measures. Experts see this as a 'bellwether' moment, driven by growing evidence of social media's harms, though effectiveness and circumvention remain concerns.
A new issue of the American Journal of Public Health reveals how tobacco companies like Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds used strategies developed for selling cigarettes to market ultra-processed foods (UPFs), including Lunchables, to children. These strategies focused on optimizing formulations for rapid reward and creating addictive products. UPFs are linked to increased risks of dementia, cognitive decline, cardiovascular diseases, and certain cancers.
Health organizations accuse big tobacco of using fears of illicit markets to lobby for lower taxes, warning this undermines decades of progress in smoking control. They criticize a parliamentary inquiry for holding secret hearings with Philip Morris, violating WHO agreements.
