Aggressive strategy and loss in the trial highlight a problem for tech firms: a widespread distrust of social media companies

When Meta , the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, sought to defend itself in the landmark social media addiction lawsuit alleging its products caused personal injury to a young user, it went on the offensive. The mental health problems that the 20-year-old known as KGM suffered since she was a child were not the result of exposure to harm on Instagram, Meta’s lawyers and public relations team argued, but instead linked to her mother’s parenting and her offline social problems.

In a bench memo filed before the trial began, lawyers for Meta quoted excerpts from KGM’s teenage text messages, personal writings and social media posts complaining about her mother. They combed through therapy notes and called on doctors to testify to examples of personal conflict. Throughout the proceedings, Meta’s communications team sent reporters repeated updates from the trial and quotes from testimony that highlighted her familial issues. Far from causing harm, they alleged that Instagram offered a helpful respite from the real world.

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US release of horror novel Shy Girl cancelled and UK book discontinued after suspected AI use, as publishers feel ‘cold shiver’

Recently, the literary agent Kate Nash started noticing that the submission letters she was receiving from authors were becoming more thorough – albeit also more formulaic.

“I took it as a rise in diligence,” she said. “I thought it was a good thing.”

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Leonid Radvinsky’s widow has been left with a crucial role in deciding what happens to the business that made her husband a billionaire

Yekaterina Chudnovsky, online biographies say, is a mother-of-four who “enjoys spending time with her family and teaching them the importance of giving back and helping others”. They add that Ukrainian-born Chudnovsky, known as Katie, finds sanctuary in walks on the beach.

In interviews, Chudnovsky has spoken warmly about her commitment to philanthropy, her dedication to support cancer research and her work as a lawyer for an unnamed global technology firm. Pornography is never mentioned.

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Experts say paid participants are using automated tools to generate unreliable survey responses at scale

If you had been keeping tabs on the news about church attendance in Britain lately, you would be forgiven for thinking the country was in the midst of a Christian revival .

Stories of swelling congregations, filled with young people returning to the flock , spurred on by everything from social media to a rise in bible sales appeared to be confirmed by a 2024 report from the Bible Society.

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AI images of people – such as women in military contexts – are making money and serving as propaganda, researchers say

Online content creators are not just building fake images and videos of prominent public figures, they are also fabricating people and using them in military contexts, which can make them money and even serve as effective propaganda, according to artificial intelligence researchers.

Some of these online avatars are sexualized images of women wearing camouflage garb that have generated a significant audience and helped create an idealized image of political figures like Donald Trump, even if the viewer knows the content is not real, according to experts.

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Do we really need a McDonald’s CEO fronting ads or a Gianni Infantino Panini sticker? No. But in the age of Trump, the boss class feels emboldened

A few weeks ago, the CEO of McDonald’s appeared in a video sampling the chain’s new “Big Arch burger”. In the clip, Chris Kempczinski, or “Chris K” as he casually calls himself, labelled it a “product”, matching the sterile tone of the review – all harsh lighting, corporate office backdrop and an awkward man talking and eating while wearing a shirt fitting uneasily under a light wool V-neck.

Why would McDonald’s, with its huge marketing budget and commercial success, choose to platform this guy? His stilted efforts were mocked and memed, with executives at Burger King and Wendy’s posting their own versions – what fun. Inevitably some market watchers claimed it drove engagement and sales. But to me, it seems to be just the latest flagrant example of CEOism: when CEOs/founders/heads of organisations centre themselves in the action – just because they can.

Larry Ryan is a freelance writer and editor

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Ruling that Meta and YouTube deliberately designed addictive products marks possible watershed moment for social media

The young woman at the heart of what has been called the tech industry’s “big tobacco” moment was on YouTube at six and Instagram by nine. More than a decade later, she says, she still can’t live without the social media she became addicted to.

“I can’t, it’s too hard to be without it,” Kaley, now 20, told a jury at Los Angeles’ superior court. This week, five men and seven women handed down a verdict on the design of two of the world’s most popular apps that vindicated Kaley’s position.

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Updated prices of PlayStation 5 consoles to go into effect on 2 April as electronics makers face rising cost pressures

Sony is raising global prices of its PlayStation 5 consoles, including a $100 increase in the US, marking its second hike in less than a year as the entertainment giant grapples with rising costs of key components such as memory chips.

The tech industry’s race to build out artificial intelligence infrastructure has pushed memory makers to favor higher-margin datacenter chips, tightening supply for consumer devices like the ones Sony sells.

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Two court cases have shown how companies can be forced to take responsibility for their impact on public health

Debate about online harms has tended to focus on abusive and hateful content. But the form in which content is delivered is at least as important. That point is central to this week’s momentous decisions against Meta and YouTube , by two US juries. It will take more than these cases to loosen big tech’s tight grip on much of the world’s attention. But the fact that both companies were found liable in California, for deliberately designing addictive products that harmed a child, is a massive win for the coalition of campaigners aiming to use the US courts to force the platforms to change their products.

The second case against Meta, in New Mexico, found it liable over the use of Facebook and Instagram for child sex trafficking , with a Guardian investigation cited in the complaint. The jury ordered it to pay $375m in civil liabilities; the state’s attorney general is seeking platform changes and financial penalties.

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