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The End of Infinite Scroll. How 450 School Districts Took Down Mark Zuckerberg.
The End of Infinite Scroll. How 450 School Districts Took Down Mark Zuckerberg.
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0:00
Meta was facing a $1.4 trillion extinction event… until they paid to make it go away.
0:05
For years Mark Zuckerberg and his inner circle thought they were untouchable.
0:09
They had engineered the ‘Like’ button to exploit children,
0:12
trading safety for aggressive platform growth. They thought Meta was too big, too wealthy,
0:17
and too powerful to fail. They were wrong.
0:20
A legal loophole threatened to bring Zuckerberg’s social media
0:22
empire crashing down. A loophole that could delete the ‘Like’ button forever.
0:27
And Meta’s high priced lawyers were scrambling… because they had no idea how to stop it.
0:31
The panic spreading through Meta offices was all down to a 30 year old law.
0:36
Section 230. Passed back in 1996,
0:39
this single legislation helped lay the foundations of the internet we know today.
0:43
Essentially, the law states that if someone posts a defamatory comment, or engages in hate speech
0:48
on Facebook, or other platforms, they’re responsible. Not the social media platform.
0:53
For decades, this was Meta’s ultimate get out of jail free card.
0:57
Without this protection, social media sites couldn’t exist. It’s the reason companies like
1:01
Meta grew into trillion dollar conglomerates. And they did it while ignoring the ethical
1:06
nightmare brewing in the background. Section 230 was their shield.
1:10
Or, at least, that’s how it seemed. Until 2021.
1:13
That was when a group of state Attorneys General, including California Attorney General Rob Bonta,
1:18
found a crack in the shield. They already had strong reason to believe that social media was
1:22
dangerous for children. They believed Meta knew that… and even made it worse.
1:28
But they didn’t have the hard data. Then the “Facebook Files” were leaked.
1:32
Whistleblower and former Facebook Product Manager, Frances Haugen exposed internal
1:36
documents that proved Meta knew its platforms were toxic. They knew their sites were linked
1:41
to a youth mental health crisis. Even as executives publicly denied the accusations,
1:46
their own internal memos said otherwise. Now the attorneys had the evidence, but they still
1:51
had a problem. Attacking the content on Facebook and Instagram was pointless. The moment a lawsuit
1:56
targets posts or comments on these platforms, Meta’s lawyers just have to point to Section 230.
2:01
The case would be dead on arrival. But what about the code?
2:04
Don’t go after the content. Go after the architecture underneath it all.
2:09
At that point, Meta wouldn’t be able to hide behind Section 230, anymore.
2:13
The lawyers argued that features, like the “Like” button and infinite scrolling
2:16
were explicitly engineered to hijack people’s natural neurobiology.
2:20
They claimed that these platforms were built to trigger stimulating rushes,
2:24
forcing compulsive and addictive behavior. Meta hadn’t built a social media network.
2:29
They had created a digital slot machine to hook children.
2:32
Meta had served up seriously flawed products and no warnings of the kinds
2:36
of negative effects they might cause. And the word ‘products’ was intentional.
2:40
That meant prosecutors didn’t have to worry about Section 230. They weren’t taking aim at what users
2:46
were doing or saying on Facebook. They weren’t arguing for censorship or for Facebook’s bosses
2:51
to ban certain users or delete certain posts. They were saying the platforms were
2:55
hazardous to people’s brain chemistry. And they had evidence to back them up.
2:59
Take the “Like” button. On the surface, it looks simple. It’s just a button that people
3:03
use to express appreciation, a way to show that they found something interesting or entertaining.
3:08
But there’s much more to it. Studies show that every time
3:11
social media users receive “Likes,” their brains release a brief burst of dopamine. Known as the
3:16
“happy hormone” or the “pleasure molecule,” this chemical is responsible for feelings of pleasure,
3:21
motivation, and satisfaction. But it doesn’t last long.
3:24
Every hit is a very brief “high”. A tiny period of intense joy that quickly fades,
3:29
leaving people wanting more. Prosecutors argue it’s one of
3:33
the reasons why the “Like” button was designed and deployed in the first place: it keeps people
3:37
logging onto their Facebook feeds each day. It keeps them connected, engaged,
3:41
and addicted to social media. They’re always waiting for that next “Like” to pop and that
3:46
next dopamine release to hit them. Prosecutors have also pointed to other Meta-made features as
3:50
proof that the company’s products were designed to prey on people’s mental and emotional health.
3:55
Like variable rewards and reinforcements. Behavioral psychology studies in both animals
4:00
and humans have found that unpredictable rewards tend to create the strongest repetitive habits.
4:06
Say you ask someone to complete a simple task over and over again and you give them a treat as
4:11
a reward for their actions. But instead of dishing out treats on a fixed basis - like after every 10
4:15
tasks completed - you hand them out randomly. They might get one after doing just 2 tasks,
4:20
then another after 12, then after five, and so on. The subject knows they’ll get a reward eventually.
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But there’s no fixed schedule. All they know is that if they complete their tasks, there’s
4:30
a chance they will be rewarded. As a result, they start working harder, completing tasks at a faster
4:36
pace in order to maximize their reward rate. The exact mechanism is used in slot machines.
4:42
People know that pulling the lever might lead to a reward. The machines are designed to pay
4:47
out just enough - on a random basis - to keep people pulling again and again.
4:51
Prosecutors in the Meta lawsuit have argued that Facebook and Instagram function in a similar way.
4:56
When users open up the sites, their feeds and notifications often don’t load up right away.
5:01
Instead, there’s a slight delay between opening the page and receiving the latest
5:05
batch of “Likes” and notifications. That tiny delay can create a sudden
5:09
spike of dopamine, as the user anticipates what will happen next: “Will I have any new
5:14
notifications?” “Did someone like my latest post?” “Did my picture get any comments?”
5:19
It’s easy to see how it can become addictive. It’s why so many social
5:22
media users will refresh their feeds over and over or check their phones on a regular basis.
5:27
Then, there’s the “infinite scroll.” It’s practically ubiquitous across social
5:31
media sites today. From Facebook to Reddit, plenty of platforms now allow users to scroll endlessly,
5:37
seeing one fresh post after another. It didn’t used to be that way.
5:41
There was a time in the digital media landscape where pages had fixed ends.
5:46
You got to the bottom, and that was that. Your eyes were able to detach themselves from
5:50
the screen. Your brain was able to take a break before the next batch of content came along.
5:55
Meta tore up those foundations and built something completely different.
5:59
It popularized the concept of continuous social feeds.
6:02
The next set of posts were pre-loading before the user even had time to swipe down far enough.
6:07
The result was a neverending stream of content. And what happens when users can keep on scrolling
6:13
and see more and more posts, pictures, and videos? They scroll far more than ever before.
6:18
It’s like the “bottomless bowl” study, which involved subjects eating soup from bowls that were
6:23
subtly refilled as their contents were consumed. The study found that the people with the so-called
6:28
“bottomless bowls” ended up eating over 70% more soup than those with regular ones.
6:33
The visual cue telling them to stop - an empty bowl - never appeared.
6:38
Critics of Facebook and similar social sites argue that they employ that same idea:
6:42
if you never let people see the end of their feed, they never have to stop scrolling.
6:47
They’re incentivized to keep going just that little bit further, each time. If they don’t,
6:51
they might miss a post. It’s FOMO.
6:53
The fear of missing out. The prosecution claims that Meta made
6:57
all of the features and systems integral parts of its platforms. Then unleashed them on some of the
7:02
most vulnerable people in society - adolescents. As they progress through their formative teenage
7:07
years, young people’s brains and bodies are still developing. They’re undergoing major physical
7:11
and hormonal changes, coping with an increasingly complex array of challenges and responsibilities.
7:17
They’re more likely to experience mental health issues like anxiety and depression than other age
7:21
groups. Because their brains are still growing and changing, they can struggle to cope with stress,
7:26
anxiety, peer pressure, and conflict. These factors create a unique cognitive
7:30
cocktail that puts teens at risk of not only using social media excessively,
7:35
but being mentally affected by it as well. Critics argue Meta was made to exploit that fact.
7:40
Its engagement-based ranking algorithms were designed to drive dopamine releases
7:45
and maximize engagement. Data suggests that the kind of content that keeps the average
7:49
teen engaged is, more often than not, negative or harmful. Like content related to social anxieties,
7:55
eating disorders, and body dysmorphia. The more people engaged with this kind
8:00
of content, the more the algorithm began to push it. It reached the point where
8:04
young users were starting to see their feeds filled with stress or anxiety inducing posts.
8:09
Naturally, Meta’s executives denied all this for years.
8:13
But in 2021, Frances Haugen’s smoking gun was revealed in all its ugly glory.
8:18
The Former Meta Product Manager shared thousands of internal documents from Facebook’s servers
8:23
with the news media and the wider world. In doing so, she revealed just how much Meta really knew
8:29
about the psychological impacts of its products. The leaks were damning.
8:33
“We make body image issues worse for 1 in 3 teen girls,” read a
8:36
statement on one internal presentation. “32% of teen girls said that when they
8:41
felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse,” revealed another.
8:45
Meta’s researchers also concluded that ”Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate
8:50
of anxiety and depression. This reaction was unprompted and consistent across all groups.”
8:56
And it got worse. One study said that
8:58
17.5% of girls suffered more with their eating disorders after spending time on the platform.
9:04
Meta knew that its products were causing harm. It did nothing.
9:08
In the eyes of parents, educators, and legal professionals, it was reckless. It
9:12
was harmful. And it was wrong. But it didn’t end there.
9:16
Another whistleblower, Arturo Bejar, who worked as a Meta engineer,
9:20
also spoke out against the company. Testifying before Congress,
9:23
he revealed that he had spent a year studying the harm that Facebook and Instagram had on teenagers.
9:28
He emailed a report of his findings and recommendations for the next best steps to
9:32
the company’s bosses, including Mark Zuckerberg. Bejar states that he never heard back from them.
9:38
Meanwhile, as Meta’s executives were creating their internal slideshows
9:41
and classified research reports about teenage users, people in the real world were suffering.
9:47
Data from 2009 revealed a worrying trend. When smartphones began to flood the teen
9:52
market and algorithms pivoted to maximize engagement, the US - and
9:55
other nations - saw an explosion in mental health problems among the younger generations.
10:01
Between 2009 and 2022 Ever increasing numbers of teenage boys and girls also
10:06
reported signs and symptoms of anxiety, depression, and even negative thoughts.
10:10
Meta knew it was going on. It knew it was playing a part.
10:13
And it didn’t do enough to change that. That’s what prosecutors based much of their
10:17
opening arguments on when the company was officially placed on trial on August 18th,
10:22
2026. It had taken 3 years to get there, but now, Meta was in the dock.
10:27
Inside the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in Oakland, California,
10:32
the state’s Deputy Attorney General, Meghan O'Neill, issued her opening remarks.
10:36
She pointed at the leaked documents as proof that the company’s own research teams
10:40
had dug into how teenage minds work and what makes them addicted to social sites. Instead
10:45
of acting on that information, the company’s engineers exploited it for their own gain.
10:49
They engineered features and platform “improvements”
10:52
to capitalize on teenagers' emotional insecurities and still-developing brains.
10:57
“The young ones are the best ones,” read the header of one internal memo,
11:01
which O’Neill shared with the court. It highlighted the malicious and insidious
11:05
undercurrent flowing through the executive offices of one of the world’s wealthiest companies.
11:09
The prosecution is expected to argue that Meta’s ultimate goal is getting users as
11:14
invested and engaged as possible with its products. To do that, it’s alleged the company
11:18
not only created exploitative features, but also violated the federal Children’s
11:23
Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA. COPPA was made to keep children under
11:27
the age of 13 safe in an increasingly digital world. Internet platforms were
11:32
forbidden from collecting personal data or building virtual profiles of younger users.
11:36
The lawsuit states that even though Meta put a 13+ age limit on its products, it knew that
11:42
younger users were still accessing Instagram and Facebook. And it still collected personal
11:47
information about them, without parental consent. The evidence suggests that the company turned a
11:51
blind eye to its swathes of underage users, allowed pre-teens to bypass its most basic
11:57
of age gates, and used unlawfully-obtained personal data to feed its insatiable algorithms.
12:02
New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport told NPR:
12:05
“They're putting the profits … over the health of a generation of young people.”
12:09
Meta lawyer Paul Schmidt has countered that Meta has and continues to take steps to improve
12:14
the safety and design of its platforms. He claims that the company can’t stop millions
12:18
of underage users from lying about their ages to access its apps, just like it can’t control the
12:23
“negative content” that users share. It remains to be seen which side’s
12:27
argument will prove the most convincing. But there’s a lot riding on this case.
12:31
According to Meta's own legal experts, each individual violation of laws like COPPA carries
12:36
a maximum financial penalty of up to $53,000. When you add that up over literally tens of millions of
12:43
young users across years of usage, Meta claims it could have to pay a jaw-dropping $1.4 trillion.
12:50
The company’s legal team used this figure as a way to illustrate the absurdity of the case.
12:54
It’s the same amount as Meta’s entire market capitalization.
12:58
If Meta was hit with the maximum financial penalty, it would be the equivalent of a
13:02
death sentence. The company would be forced into instantaneous insolvency. But prosecutors and US
13:08
District Judge, Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, have indicated that the financial penalty would be
13:12
closer to the $200 billion mark. Even that would be enormous.
13:16
But Zuckerberg didn’t wait for the verdict. Just days into the trial, Meta capitulated. They struck
13:22
a $18 billion deal to settle the case. They avoided the trillion dollar doomsday scenario,
13:27
but the fallout is still seismic. But money isn’t the real focus here.
13:31
There’s much more to this case. It’s about holding big tech accountable for its
13:35
actions. It’s about proving that these ludicrously wealthy and influential companies can’t be allowed
13:40
to get away with whatever they want, just because they can afford the best lawyers and lobbyists.
13:44
It’s about setting a legal precedent that would send shockwaves across Silicon Valley and change
13:49
the state of social media for generations to come. It’s about shattering the Section 230
13:54
shield and ending the exploitation of people’s natural emotions and neurological pathways.
13:59
Many reporters are already labeling the trial the tech world’s “Big Tobacco Moment.”
14:04
In the 1990s, there were a slew of suits filed against tobacco companies
14:08
which resulted in cigarette firms being forced to pay out hundreds of billions of dollars.
14:12
It rewrote the rules of nicotine marketing and sales forever.
14:16
Back then, there was evidence to prove that the big firms knew their products were dangerous,
14:20
but didn’t bother to warn the public. Meta’s scenario is a little different.
14:25
But the fundamentals are the same. The states say Meta knew what it was
14:29
doing was dangerous, but didn’t stop. It chose engagement and profit over protecting people.
14:34
This landmark case changes everything. Meta is being forced to dismantle its
14:38
digital “slot machines” for minors. Teen accounts face strict 2 hour time limits,
14:43
accounts being blocked from midnight to 6 a.m. and muted automatic push notifications.
14:47
Without those validation and reinforcement systems, sites like Facebook and Instagram
14:51
would no longer have the same level of control over people’s minds and feelings.
14:56
They’d have to transition from “digital slot machines” to what they were originally
14:59
supposed to be: spaces where people keep in touch with friends and family.
15:04
And Meta’s money-making model would take the hit. The company has built an entire empire around
15:08
keeping people engaged with its products. If that all suddenly comes to a grinding halt, if
15:13
engagement gets slashed in half - or worse - then the company’s ad revenue also suffers a knockout
15:18
blow. Its stock price will slide to record lows. But it won’t stop at Meta.
15:23
TikTok and Youtube could be forced to adopt the same age limits and restrictions. Zuckerberg won’t
15:28
want to be at a disadvantage. The algorithm and dopamine releasing features are in the crosshairs.
15:33
The landscape of social media will change forever. The nightmare for Mark Zuckerberg is just
15:38
starting. While he’s fighting a trillion dollar lawsuit, users are abandoning his platforms.
15:43
Watch “It’s Not You. Nobody Likes Facebook Anymore” to find out why. Or click on this.
The End of Infinite Scroll. How 450 School Districts Took Down Mark Zuckerberg. - Video học tiếng Anh
