Meta Knew Its Apps Hooked Kids. A Jury Just Said So.

TGIF.

A six-year-old girl started watching YouTube. Fourteen years later she told a courtroom she still sneaks away from work to scroll. This week, a jury believed her.

Coffee at the ready.

A Los Angeles jury just did what Big Tech spent years trying to prevent: it treated a social media app as a defective product.

Meta and YouTube were found liable for building apps designed to addict children. They awarded $6 million to the woman who said the apps wrecked her. No jury had ever done this before.

One day earlier, a New Mexico jury hit Meta with $375 million for misleading users about child safety on its platforms.

Two verdicts in two days. Meta's share price went up.

Before we slurp into today’s brew…

Here are some wordies from today’s sponsor.

A new Knight Frank report made an unexpected declaration. It revealed that 44% of family offices are investing more in residential real estate now. And, you don’t need to be Warren Buffet to see why.

Since 2000, residential real estate outperformed the S&P 500 by 70% in total returns. It’s the only asset that pays you to own it, grows while you sleep, and shields your gains from the IRS. 

That’s why you need mogul. It’s a real estate platform that lets you invest in institutional-grade rental properties. You get monthly rental income, capital appreciation and tax benefits without a down payment or 3 a.m. tenant calls. In fact, over 20,000 investors have joined. 

Here’s Why:

• Tax Benefits

• +7% annual yields

• 18.8% avg annual IRR

TLDR: You can invest in high quality real estate for a fraction of the cost. Why wait?

Unlock This Alternative Now

Past performance isn't predictive; illustrative only. Investing risks principal; no securities offer. See important Disclaimers

For years, tech companies hid behind Section 230 — the law saying platforms aren't liable for what users post.

Smart lawyers found the workaround. They stopped suing over content. They sued over design.

Infinite scroll. Autoplay. Beauty filters letting a nine-year-old reshape her own face.

A car with no brakes, sold to a child.

Then came the receipts…

Meta's own internal memo said the quiet part loud: to win big with teens, bring them in as tweens. Meta hired 18 outside experts to study beauty filters. All 18 flagged harm.

The company kept them live.

Instagram boss Adam Mosseri told the court the word "addiction" was too strong. He preferred "problematic." YouTube's VP of engineering told jurors his kids use the app for hours a day. He's fine with it.

Bold strategy in a child safety trial.

The jury took nine days.

They pinned 70% on Meta, 30% on YouTube. The $6 million barely registers on balance sheets worth trillions. But this was a bellwether — a test case chosen to set the template for 1,500 more.

Federal trial this summer.

California's attorney general takes Meta to trial in August. In the 1990s, Big Tobacco lost one bellwether and ended up paying $206 billion. Shareholders are treating these verdicts like parking tickets. They might be looking at a tow truck.

If courts start mandating age gates, safer defaults, and weaker engagement loops, the cost isn't the fine.

It's the growth curve.

Pro: When regulators stall for a decade, juries step in. Kids deserve legal protection from products engineered to exploit developing brains.

Con: Nobody ever argued cigarettes had a safe use. Social media does. Pinning complex mental health on app design risks turning every notification ping into a lawsuit.

Our read: The science is messy. Meta's own memos are not. They knew. They shipped. A jury noticed.

[Report] New Mexico Department of Justice — "Landmark Verdict Against Meta"
The state's AG is now seeking court-ordered platform changes: age verification, predator removal, encrypted messaging reforms.

Why it matters: The fine was $375 million. The forced redesign could cost more..

Meta stock rose 5% the day a jury called its apps dangerous for children. (NPR)

CNBC — USPS slaps its first-ever fuel surcharge on parcels — 8% from April. Diesel up 43% in a month.

NPR — Britain booted its last hereditary lords. Seven hundred years of dukes voting on laws, done.

Fox Business — The plaintiff's lawyer held up a jar of M&Ms in court. Each one was a billion dollars of Meta's value. She got six..

You can read all our back issue newsletters for free here.

For the love of coffee, see you Monday!

Enjoy your weekend, keep it caffeinated.

Thanks for reading!

Are you subscribing?

Join your crew of caffeinated sceptics today.

Be sure to get your daily Curse and Coffee fix by hitting the button below.

Open Monday to Friday.

Read yesterday’s newsletter about Trump’s Operation Epic fury here.

Happy Friday. Stay caffeinated.

Learn how to read any government/company PDF without crying!

Take advantage of what others miss. We teach you how to extract the gems from the dirt.

Share the Curse and Coffee newsletter with just 1 real person to download your Receipts Toolkit instantly—a field guide for caffeinated sceptics who want to pull signal from filings, datasets, and reports.

No law degree needed—a no-nap promise.

Unlock and never struggle to identify opportunities in long, drawn-out documents again.

“Receipts over vibes. Always.”

Thank you for sharing…

And be sure to use your toolkit to extract max alpha from any document you read.

Stay Caffinated!