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The Morning Risk Report: Meta and YouTube Lose Landmark Social-Media Addiction Trial

By Richard Vanderford | Dow Jones Risk Journal

 

Good morning. A 20-year-old woman prevailed in a landmark social-media trial against Meta Platforms and Google’s YouTube in which the companies were accused of designing their apps to be addictive and harmful to adolescents.

  • Lurking dangers: A jury found Instagram’s owner Meta and YouTube negligent for operating a product that harmed kids and teens and failed to warn about those dangers. The decision dealt a blow to the companies that have historically been shielded by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
     
  • Mounting legal challenges: The watershed verdict is the second time this week that courts have rendered the companies liable for harm inflicted by their platforms. More than 3,000 other similar lawsuits against Meta, YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok are pending in California courts.
     
  • Appeals coming: Meta plans to appeal, according to Andy Stone, a company spokesman. “Teen mental health is profoundly complex and cannot be linked to a single app. We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously as every case is different,” he said in a statement. José Castañeda, a spokesman for Google, which owns YouTube, said they also plan to appeal.
 
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More Risk & Compliance articles from Deloitte
 

Compliance

The Supreme Court decision for Cox was unanimous. Photo: Evan Vucci/Reuters

Supreme Court limits liability for internet service providers.

The Supreme Court saved Cox Communications from having to pay steep monetary damages for not terminating the internet service of customers caught pirating music online, in a decision that provides new liability protections for internet service providers.

The court, in an opinion Wednesday by Justice Clarence Thomas, ruled that an internet service provider is only liable for its customers’ copyright infringement if it intended for its service to be used that way or is tailored for illegal activity.

 

Three charged in alleged Nvidia chip diversion scheme.

Federal prosecutors charged three men over an alleged scheme to divert Nvidia chips to China in defiance of U.S. export controls.

Prosecutors in Atlanta announced charges against Stanley Yi Zheng, Matthew Kelly and Tommy Shad English over their alleged involvement in a scheme to ship hundreds of servers containing restricted chips to China by claiming Thailand as their final destination.

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  • President Trump installed some of the biggest names in business—including Meta Platforms Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, Oracle Executive Chairman Larry Ellison and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang—to a technology council to weigh in on AI policy and other issues.
     
  • Prediction market regulation has bipartisan support, but don’t bet on anything being signed into law.
     
  • New bank regulations could favor loans to private credit, Telis Demos writes in a column.
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$340,000

How much autism-therapy provider Piece by Piece Autism Centers billed Medicaid per patient, on average, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. Indiana has moved to cut off the provider from Medicaid following the article’s publication.

 

Risk

Manus develops an AI agent that can carry conduct research and prepare presentation slides. Photo: Raul Ariano/Bloomberg News

Leaders of AI firm bought by Meta are restricted from leaving China.

China has told two co-founders of artificial-intelligence startup Manus not to leave the country while authorities review the company’s $2.5 billion sale to Meta Platforms, people familiar with the matter said.

The series of events that culminated in a U.S. company’s purchase of China-originated technology has angered Beijing regulators. They are concerned Manus’s moves would encourage other Chinese companies to follow suit and move out of China without Beijing’s vetting.

 

Iran suspected of creating bogus group to claim attacks in Europe.

Authorities are investigating Iran’s suspected involvement in a string of terrorist attacks in Europe that have targeted Jewish sites in response to the war in the Middle East, security officials say.

They suspect Iranian agents recruited individuals online to carry out attacks on Jewish schools, synagogues and companies linked to Israel, and set up a bogus group to claim responsibility for them.

 
  • The prospects of a diplomatic deal ending the war between the U.S. and Iran look dim right now. But Middle East veterans say there is a pathway for an agreement if the two sides want to engage.
     
  • European militaries are taking steps to boost their use of alternative fuels as supply shocks from the war in Iran accentuate the risks surrounding the continent’s reliance on importing fossil fuels.
     
  • The global supply shock resulting from the war in Iran could pose a risk to inflation and longer term inflation expectations at a time when there are continuing capacity pressures in Australia, according to the Reserve Bank of Australia.
     
  • New Zealand is known for majestic landscapes, epic filmmaking and once-in-a-lifetime vacations. Now, the country is embarking on a more off-brand project: bolstering its tiny military, as China sends forces deeper into the Pacific.
     
  • The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is teaching artificial intelligence models hundreds of years of weather data to modernize forecasting, an agency official said.
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“Even if the war ends overnight, it will take the gas market much longer to return to normal than oil.”

— Adi Imsirovic, a former energy-trading executive and lecturer at the University of Oxford. Liquefied natural gas once acted as the global economy’s reliable escape valve during energy crises, but has become the battlefield itself.
 

Webinars

Dow Jones Risk Journal is hosting two webinars in coming days focused on prominent risks.

On March 26, we will discuss how compliance professionals can manage the relaxation of Russia sanctions as part of efforts to ease pressure on world oil markets. This event will feature Stephanie Broekaart, a partner with Agorax who worked as a trade lawyer at several major companies; and Glenn Kaminsky, managing director with KPMG and a former official with the U.S. Department of Commerce and Department of Homeland Security. You can register here.

Then on March 31 we will host a discussion on debanking and fair access banking laws with Will Jacquet, a partner at Morgan Lewis and former head of enforcement at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency; and Eric Young, senior managing director, Guidepost Solutions, and a former chief compliance officer. You can register here.

 

What Else Matters

  • Reflection, a startup backed by chip giant Nvidia that is leading an effort to create freely available U.S. AI systems, is in talks to raise $2.5 billion at a valuation of $25 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.
     
  • Meta Platforms is seeking to incentivize its top executives to grow the company at an extremely aggressive pace with a new stock option program that could pay some of them hundreds of millions of dollars.
     
  • The U.S. Postal Service plans to impose its first-ever surcharge on packages to cover the rising cost of fuel and transportation.
     
  • Sony and Honda have hit the brakes on a $102,900 electric car.
     
  • The tiny country behind some of soccer’s biggest stars is on the brink of a first World Cup.
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About Us

Follow us on X at @WSJRisk. Send tips to our reporters Max Fillion at max.fillion@dowjones.com, Mengqi Sun at mengqi.sun@wsj.com and Richard Vanderford at richard.vanderford@wsj.com.

You can also reach us by replying to any newsletter, or by emailing our editor David Smagalla at david.smagalla@wsj.com.

 
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