Hello and welcome to the Times Tech Podcasts where every week we unpack how technology is reshaping business, culture and everyday life.

I'm Danny Fortson covering all things tech out here in Silicon Valley.

And I'm Katie Prescott looking at tech from the city of London.

And this week we're going to talk about what could be the end of an era of what sometimes

feels like complete invincibility for tech companies.

That's right.

So two landmark court rulings have found that meta and YouTube deliberately designed addictive products, their apps.

And that sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley and spark some hope among families and child

safety campaigners that change may finally be coming.

So our big question this week is, is this big tech's big tobacco moment?

Could these verdicts lead to a master settlement similar to the one all the way back in 1998

when companies were forced to pay billions of dollars to cover damages caused by smoking?

Well, to help us answer that question, who better than the woman who's been leading the

charge to reign in big tech here in Britain, Baroness Kidron.

She's a long, longstanding digital activist and a crossbench peer in the House of Lords.

And she'll be here in just a moment, but first, let's get into some of the developments around

this, you know,

this kind of growing global rebellion against tech and social media in particular.

Yeah, I mean, and those developments really have come from the U.S. and in the past week or so.

Just remind us what has happened in those really seminal court cases and what were the verdicts?

Yeah.

So last week marked a landmark moment in the history of tech.

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