Is this social media's 'Big Tobacco moment'?
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 1 April 2026
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We look at the fallout from the recent court case which found Meta and Google liable for harming the mental health of one their young users and deliberately making their platforms addictive.
Some have suggested this is “a tobacco moment” for Big Tech – comparable to the time when cigarette companies were forced to acknowledge that their products were harmful.
We ask if social media companies should be brought into line, and if they can be. And if reforms are agreed, what would a responsible social media landscape look like?
To get in touch with the team, our email address is businessdaily@bbc.co.uk
Presenter: Gideon Long Producer: Josh Martin
Business Daily is the home of in-depth audio journalism devoted to the world of money and work. From small startup stories to big corporate takeovers, global economic shifts to trends in technology, we look at the key figures, ideas and events shaping business.
Each episode is a 17-minute, daily deep dive into a single topic, featuring expert analysis and the people at the heart of the story.
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(Picture: Left to right, Victims families and supporters Shelby Knox, Amy Neville, Mary Rodee, Laura Marquez-Garrett, Sarah Gardner, and Lennon Torres react to the verdict outside the Los Angeles Superior Court on the 25th of March 2026. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service. I'm Gideon Long, |
| 0:11.5 | and today we're looking at the fallout from the recent monumental court ruling in Los Angeles |
| 0:15.8 | against social media companies. Meta, the owner of Instagram and Google, which owns YouTube, |
| 0:21.5 | were found liable for harming a young user's mental health by deliberately making their products |
| 0:26.6 | addictive. We now know that they were manipulating our children for profits while we were |
| 0:32.9 | watching and trying to keep our families safe. They are the predators. The tech companies deny the accusations and say they'll appeal. |
| 0:40.9 | But lawyers say the verdict will send shockwaves far beyond Los Angeles, |
| 0:45.0 | opening the floodgates to a wave of similar claims. |
| 0:47.9 | This is a landmark moment. |
| 0:49.5 | It will reverberate. |
| 0:50.9 | I'll tell you this. |
| 0:52.3 | If the jury had returned to know, the champagne corks would be |
| 0:56.2 | popping in the boardrooms of Google and meta. So is this, as some have suggested, a tobacco |
| 1:02.3 | moment for big tech? Comparable to the time when the big cigarette companies were forced to |
| 1:07.4 | acknowledge that their products were harmful. Should social media companies be brought into line? |
| 1:12.8 | And can they be? |
| 1:13.8 | Or are they just too big, too wealthy, too powerful? |
| 1:17.3 | If reforms can be agreed, |
| 1:19.0 | what would a responsible social media landscape look like? |
| 1:22.4 | That's what we're asking on Business Daily from the BBC World Service. |
| 1:29.1 | That's it. That's it. on Business Daily from the BBC World Service. First. |
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