It's the Brian Laris show on WNYC.

Good morning again, everyone, coming up later in the hour, Sam Sanders and you on anything from the Oscars last night.

But now we turn to what's being seen as a landmark trial regarding social media addiction.

After a month of hearings, jurors are now deliberating on whether or not social media companies

should be liable for harm caused to children.

It was brought by a 20-year-old woman, this lawsuit, against

Medda's Instagram and Google's YouTube for optimizing their products to her mental and physical

detriment. And though it's not getting all that much coverage, legal scholars like Columbia's

Tim Wu, for example, and many media outlets are comparing this trial at least potentially to the big tobacco trial from more than half a century ago, which ushered in more successful lawsuits against tobacco companies, a lot of money that went into anti-smoking programs and help move Americans

away from smoking tobacco. Joining us now to break down the trial and what it all could mean

for the future of social media is David Streifeld, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter covering tech

for the New York Times. Hey, David, thanks for coming on. Welcome back

to WNYC. Hi, thanks for having me. So the plaintiff in this case is identified as Kaley or KGM,

her initials in Los Angeles County Superior Court documents, though they're keeping her full

identity anonymous

because of her age. The lawsuit accuses Instagram and YouTube of making content deliberately

addictive to children. Can you give us the outline of her case? Her argument is that she had a bad

childhood and social media made it worse.

Her lawyer equated the social media companies to drug pushers.

The pusher in your local park just wants money for his drugs.

He doesn't care if you have to rob your grandmother to do it.

And so Kaylee is arguing that social media was designed, was built to steal her attention, to addict her,

...