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What A Day

The Great Social Media Reckoning

What A Day

What A Day

News, Daily News

4.6 • 12.6K Ratings

🗓️ 26 March 2026

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On Wednesday, a California jury found Meta and YouTube each liable for harming the well-being of a young user who had sued the two companies. The plaintiff argued that the products had negatively impacted her mental health. This verdict follows a similar decision made by a jury in New Mexico earlier this week. Both decisions are part of a massive shift in how Americans are thinking about social media. New polling from Edison Research at SSRS – a major data and research firm – found that 57% of Americans ages 18 and older would support a social media ban for anyone under 16. But civil liberties groups, like the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, are crying foul, arguing that curtailing speech and content on social media is curtailing speech, period. Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at New York University’s Stern School of Business and author of "The Anxious Generation," joins the show to discuss what stronger regulations on young people could mean for all social media users.

And in headlines, a Democrat flips the Florida state legislative seat in the district that contains Mar-a-Lago, new polling shows that a majority of Americans think that the U.S. military has gone too far in attacking Iran, and a report says the White House turned down Elon Musk's offer to pay TSA agents.

Show Notes:

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

It's Thursday, March 26th. I'm Jane Koston, and this is what a day?

0:08.2

A show that does not like where First Lady Melania Trump is going with all this.

0:13.4

Here she is at an AI education summit at the White House on Wednesday after walking out with her new bestie.

0:18.4

A humanoid robot named Figure Zero3.

0:22.7

Imagine a humanoid educator named Plato.

0:27.0

Access to the classical studies is now instantaneous.

0:33.4

Literature, science, art, philosophy, mathematics, and history.

0:40.2

Humanity's entire corpus of information is available in the comfort of your home.

0:47.6

No, thank you. I'm good without humanoid teacher robots, especially ones named Plato.

0:57.6

On today's show, President Donald Trump makes a surprise decision and tells Elon Musk he

1:01.8

doesn't want his money. And Trump is reportedly spending each morning watching a highlight

1:06.0

reel of the war, edited for his attention span. But let's start with social media.

1:10.9

We told you on yesterday's show that a jury found that META violated consumer protection

1:15.4

laws in New Mexico, misleading users and putting children's safety at risk.

1:19.8

And on Wednesday, the hits just kept coming for the tech company that owns Instagram,

1:24.3

WhatsApp, and Facebook.

1:26.1

A California jury found meta and YouTube each liable for harming

1:29.6

the well-being of a young user who had sued the two companies alongside TikTok and Snap, which

1:34.4

owns Snapchat. The plaintiff argued that their products had harmed her mental health. TikTok

1:39.3

and Snap settled before the trial began. Meta must now pay the plaintiff $4.2 million in damages,

1:45.7

and YouTube, which is owned by Google, must pay $1.8 million. In response to the verdict,

1:51.6

a meta spokesperson told the New York Times, quote, we respectfully disagree with the verdict

...

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