FBI Director Kash Patel on Monday sued The Atlantic for $250 million over what he calls a “malicious and defamatory hit piece” that accused the federal law enforcement chief of having a serious drinking problem.
Patel is acting on a promise he made over the weekend to sue <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/04/kash-patel-fbi-director-drinking-absences/686839/">The Atlantic over a Friday story</a> whose sub-headline read, “Kash Patel has alarmed colleagues with episodes of excessive drinking and unexplained absences.”
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The story portrayed an absent FBI chief concerned about his job security and allegedly struggling with substance abuse, which is said to be affecting key investigations, including the murder of Charlie Kirk.
Patel has forcefully denied all allegations of misconduct.
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&#8220;You wanna attack my character, come at me, bring it on, I&#8217;ll see you in court,&#8221; Patel said in an <a href="https://x.com/FoxNews/status/2045893562026353027?s=20">interview with Fox News</a>. &#8220;We have to fight back against the fake news.&#8221;
The piece, written by reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick, cited more than two dozen anonymous sources alleging Patel engages in “excessive drinking,” as well as “conspicuous inebriation and unexplained absences&#8221; that &#8220;alarmed officials at the FBI  and the Department of Justice,&#8221; <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/fbi-director-kash-patel-sues-atlantic-court-records-show-2026-04-20/">according to Reuters</a>.
&#8220;Memo to the fake news &#8211; the only time I’ll ever actually be concerned about the hit piece lies you write about me will be when you stop,&#8221; Patel posted on April 18. &#8220;Keep talking, it means I’m doing exactly what I should be doing. And no amount of BS you write will ever deter this FBI from making America safe again and taking down the criminals you love.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Memo to the fake news &#8211; the only time I’ll ever actually be concerned about the hit piece lies you write about me will be when you stop. Keep talking, it means I’m doing exactly what I should be doing. And no amount of BS you write will ever deter this FBI from making America…
— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) <a href="https://twitter.com/FBIDirectorKash/status/2045549772044439803?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 18, 2026</a></blockquote>
Patel’s <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.291527/gov.uscourts.dcd.291527.1.0.pdf">19-page suit</a> was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., accusing The Atlantic of publishing a &#8220;sweeping, malicious, and defamatory hit piece.&#8221;
&#8220;Defendants are of course free to criticize the leadership of the FBI, but they crossed the legal line by publishing an article replete with false and obviously fabricated allegations designed to destroy Director Patel’s reputation and drive him from office,&#8221; the lawsuit reads. &#8220;Indeed, Fitzpatrick could not get a single person to go on the record in defense of these outrageous allegations, instead relying entirely on anonymous sources she knew to be both highly partisan with an ax to grind and also not in a position to know the facts.&#8221;
The Atlantic provided the FBI a two-hour window to respond to &#8220;nineteen detailed allegations concerning complex issues of national security, personnel files, security-detail logs, internal facilities logs, and personal conduct,&#8221; according to the lawsuit.
On Monday, The Atlantic vowed to fight the lawsuit, which seeks $250 million in punitive damages.
&#8220;We stand by our reporting on Kash Patel, and we will vigorously defend The Atlantic and our journalists against this meritless lawsuit,&#8221; the company said in response to the lawsuit.
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Statement from The Atlantic: <a href="https://t.co/ZoIldjSbzl">pic.twitter.com/ZoIldjSbzl</a>
— The Atlantic Communications (@TheAtlanticPR) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheAtlanticPR/status/2046239419422675189?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 20, 2026</a></blockquote>

Kash Patel

We Now Know How Much Kash Patel Is Suing The Atlantic For

Courts

kash patel

Lawsuit

Politics

The Atlantic

Trump Administration

FBI Director Kash Patel is preparing for a full-scale legal battle against The Atlantic after the outlet published a bombshell report he says is riddled with falsehoods, and he’s making clear he intends to take it to the mat.
“Print it, all false, I’ll see you in court — bring your checkbook,” Patel <a href="https://x.com/S_Fitzpatrick/status/2045273851764859074">told the magazine</a> ahead of publication, a warning that has now escalated into an imminent lawsuit.
The Friday article by Sarah Fitzpatrick, titled “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/04/kash-patel-fbi-director-drinking-absences/686839/">The FBI Director is MIA,</a>” levels a barrage of allegations against Patel, painting a picture of a senior law enforcement official allegedly plagued by instability, heavy drinking, and internal dysfunction. The report claims Patel engaged in “erratic” behavior, suffered bouts of paranoia about his job security, and was frequently absent or unreachable during key moments.
Among the most explosive claims: that Patel is “known to drink to the point of obvious intoxication” in front of colleagues, that members of his security detail have struggled to wake him due to alleged inebriation, and that officials once considered using breaching equipment to access a locked space when he could not be reached. The piece also alleges that meetings had to be delayed due to his condition and suggests his behavior could pose a “national security vulnerability.”
Patel’s legal team has forcefully rejected every one of those claims.
In a <a href="https://x.com/jbinnall/status/2045287437325254768">pre-publication letter</a>, his attorney Jesse Binnall called the allegations “categorically false and defamatory,” emphasizing that most rely on anonymous sources using vague phrasing like “people familiar with the matter.” Binnall argued that such sourcing “could not possibly possess firsthand knowledge” and accused the magazine of reckless disregard for the truth, a key component in proving defamation involving a public figure.
He also pointed to what he described as glaring factual holes, including the alleged “breaching equipment” incident, which he said has “no corroborating public record whatsoever” and appears to be either fabricated or based on a single unreliable source.
Reaction on X was immediate and sharply divided, with Patel allies and critics clashing over the credibility of The Atlantic’s reporting.
FBI media adviser Erica Knight <a href="https://x.com/_EricaKnight/status/2045279436354867267">blasted</a> the article as a recycled collection of rumors that “every real DC reporter chased, couldn&#8217;t verify, and passed on,” while laying out a lengthy defense of Patel’s record. She pointed to internal metrics under his leadership — including tens of thousands of arrests, major increases in violent crime enforcement, and large-scale fentanyl seizures — while dismissing the report’s central claims outright. “The so-called ‘intoxication incidents’ The Atlantic breathlessly reports have happened exactly ZERO times,” Knight wrote, adding bluntly: “Lawsuit is being filed.”
Others with direct ties to Patel echoed that pushback. Clint Brown, who described himself as a “sherpa” during Patel’s transition into the role, <a href="https://x.com/DissidentClint/status/2045310456340840611">said</a> he spent months working closely with him, and never witnessed any of the behavior described in the report. “Your anon sourced story is BS,” Brown wrote, adding that Patel was consistently responsive, detail-oriented, and deeply engaged in his work, often reviewing briefings at all hours.
Patel himself <a href="https://x.com/FBIDirectorKash/status/2045549772044439803">leaned into the fight</a>, framing the controversy as proof he’s doing his job. “Memo to the fake news — the only time I’ll ever actually be concerned about the hit piece lies you write about me will be when you stop,” he posted, adding that criticism would not deter the FBI from “making America safe again.”
On Capitol Hill, the reaction broke along predictable lines. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) seized on the report, <a href="https://x.com/SenSchumer/status/2045524585567723876">saying</a> it confirmed Patel is “completely unfit to serve” and calling for his resignation. But Tom Cotton (R-AR), who works directly with Patel as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, <a href="https://x.com/TomCottonAR/status/2045517520849773053">dismissed</a> the story as a “dishonest smear” and pointed instead to what he described as tangible results from the bureau. Cotton followed up, <a href="https://x.com/TomCottonAR/status/2045517524926705838">adding</a>, &#8220;Here&#8217;s what&#8217;s really happening: Liberal reporters and disgruntled deep state leakers — who have zero knowledge of what the story alleges — are bitter that the FBI is no longer targeting Catholic parents and pro-lifers.&#8221;
The clash underscores what is quickly becoming more than just a media dispute: a political and legal showdown that is now playing out in real time across both the press and the courts.
Inside the administration, Patel has drawn swift and public backing. “Patel has accomplished more in 14 months than the previous administration did in four years. Anonymously sourced hit pieces do not constitute journalism,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said when reached out to by The Atlantic for comment.
FBI Assistant Director of Public Affairs Ben Williamson, who pushed back on the allegations when first contacted by the outlet, didn’t mince words in his response. He dismissed the report as a reheated collection of long-circulating rumors that had never held up under scrutiny, <a href="https://x.com/_WilliamsonBen/status/2045274603455476140">saying</a>: “This article is a compilation of pretty much every obviously fake rumor I’ve heard the last 14 months except the Atlantic is the only one dumb enough to actually print it.”
Patel himself has gone further, <a href="https://x.com/FBIDirectorKash/status/2045327321192599867">publicly accusing</a> the magazine of acting with “actual malice,” the high legal bar required in defamation cases involving public officials. He went further, saying, “See you and your entire entourage of false reporting in court.”
His team is also demanding that The Atlantic preserve all internal communications, drafts, and source materials related to the story, a clear signal that litigation is not just a threat, but imminent.
For her part, Fitzpatrick is standing by her reporting, citing interviews with more than two dozen sources and insisting the story is accurate. 
Neither side is backing down and so the high-stakes collision between a top federal law enforcement official and a major national publication seems imminent. If Patel follows through, the case could become a major test of modern media practices, particularly the reliance on anonymous sourcing in stories involving national security figures, and whether courts are willing to scrutinize those standards more aggressively.
The next round seems likely to play out in court, where both sides will be forced to back up their claims under oath, and where the consequences could be far more serious than a war of words.

Patel Unleashes On The Atlantic Over ‘Categorically False’ Report Including ‘Locked Room’ Claim

Media

Media Bias

A self-admitted shoplifter in Portland is suing a grocery store after an employee stopped him mid-theft, setting up a case that underscores the growing tension between crime, order, and liability in one of America’s most leftist cities.
Joshua Merkel, 45, filed a $10,000 lawsuit against Albertsons and a store employee after attempting to steal a cart full of groceries in March 2024. Merkel openly admitted in court that he had no intention of paying for the items, telling jurors, “I understand I was committing a crime.”
Now, he’s arguing the employee who stopped him went too far.
The incident unfolded at a Southwest Portland Albertsons, where Merkel loaded up a shopping cart with food and walked out of the store without paying, according to court records. The lone employee working the register, Matthew “Deme” Cooper, chased him into the parking lot and confronted him.
What happened next escalated into a physical altercation that left Merkel with a fractured jaw and other injuries. But when prosecutors attempted to charge Cooper with second-degree assault, a charge that carried a potential six-year sentence, a jury took less than two hours to acquit him, rejecting the claim that his actions rose to criminal conduct.
Despite that acquittal, Merkel is now pursuing the case in civil court, claiming the employee used excessive force and seeking damages for medical bills and what he describes as “mental anguish.”
Merkel’s own testimony undercuts much of his claim. He admitted to planning the theft, loading up items in the cart with his girlfriend, and leaving the store without attempting to pay, despite having money on him at the time. 
While Merkel said hunger motivated the theft, during the criminal trial, defense attorneys argued he was selecting higher-value items, including T-bone steaks, with the intent to trade them for drugs. Merkel himself acknowledged that he has used methamphetamine on and off for roughly a decade, though he denied that it was his motive in this case.
The civil lawsuit lands as Portland continues to grapple with soaring retail theft. Monthly shoplifting reports in the city in 2026 have more than doubled since 2023, according to <a href="https://public.tableau.com/shared/SPRMC323F?:display_count=n&amp;:origin=viz_share_link">local police data</a>.
<div id="viz1776444109623" class="tableauPlaceholder" style="position: relative;">
<div style="width: 860px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" style="border: none;" src="https://public.tableau.com/static/images/SP/SPRMC323F/1_rss.png" alt=" " width="850" height="1127" />Reported Crime Trend Report via Portland Police Bureau</div>
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Critics say the civil lawsuit reflects a broader trend in liberal jurisdictions, where criminals increasingly attempt to leverage the legal system against those who stop them — turning victims and bystanders into defendants.
“Crime should not pay,” said O.H. Skinner, executive director of the Alliance For Consumers (AFC). “This lawsuit in Oregon is exactly the kind of situation we have been warning about. A self-admitted shoplifter should not be allowed to sue the Albertsons security guard who stopped him.”
“But this is the exact kind of lawsuit trial lawyers use for a big payday,” Skinner added. “They can then use this payday to enrich Democratic allies through the Shady Trial Lawyer Pipeline and push political agendas outside of the legislative process.” 
The case also raises practical questions for businesses already struggling with theft. The situation has contributed to a wave of store closures across Portland, including the Albertsons location where the incident occurred, which permanently closed in July 2025. Many retailers instruct employees not to physically intervene in shoplifting incidents to avoid legal risk, even if it means allowing merchandise to be stolen. 
Merkel’s lawsuit tests the limits of that approach, raising the question of whether someone caught in the act of committing a crime can successfully claim damages for how they were stopped.
The case is currently pending in Multnomah County, with no court date yet set.

Highway and neon sign at night, Portland, Oregon, USA

A Man Who Tried To Steal Groceries Is Now Suing The Employee Who Stopped Him

Crime

Portland

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is launching a formal investigation into Lululemon over concerns the popular activewear brand may be misleading consumers about the safety of its products, particularly regarding the potential presence of so-called “forever chemicals.”
In a press release obtained exclusively by The Daily Wire, Paxton’s office confirmed it has issued a Civil Investigative Demand as part of a broader probe into whether Lululemon has accurately represented the health impacts, safety standards, and material composition of its clothing. The company, which generated more than $11 billion in fiscal year 2025, markets itself heavily around wellness, sustainability, and performance — branding that Paxton suggested may not align with emerging concerns.
“Americans should not have to worry if they are being deceived when trying to make healthy choices for themselves and their families,” Paxton said. “I will not allow any corporation to sell harmful, toxic materials to consumers at a premium price under the guise of wellness and sustainability.”
At the center of the investigation are PFAS, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a class of synthetic chemicals widely referred to as “forever chemicals” due to their extreme resistance to breaking down in the environment or the human body. According to researchers at <a href="https://sustainability.yale.edu/explainers/yale-experts-explain-pfas-forever-chemicals#:~:text=PFAS%2C%20or%20per%2D%20and%20polyfluoroalkyl%20substances%2C%20are,chips%20*%20Toilet%20paper%20*%20Waterproof%20cosmetics">Yale School of Public Health</a>, PFAS have been used in consumer and industrial products since World War II, often for their water-resistant, stain-resistant, and non-stick properties, qualities commonly associated with performance apparel.
That same durability, however, is what makes PFAS potentially dangerous. Experts warn the chemicals can accumulate over time in the human body, persisting in blood, liver, and kidneys for years. Studies have linked PFAS exposure to a wide range of health risks, including certain cancers, liver toxicity, reduced fertility, immune system suppression, and developmental issues.
“PFAS are often called ‘forever chemicals’ because they contain an exceptionally strong carbon-fluorine bond, which makes them highly resistant to breakdown,” Yale epidemiology chair Vasilis Vasiliou explained. “As a result, they persist in the environment for decades or longer.”
Paxton’s investigation will specifically examine whether Lululemon’s products contain PFAS that consumers would not reasonably expect based on the company’s marketing. It will also scrutinize the company’s internal safety standards, testing protocols, and supply chain practices to determine whether its products comply with its own stated guidelines.
The probe comes amid growing scrutiny of PFAS contamination nationwide. Federal regulators only recently began setting enforceable limits on certain PFAS chemicals in drinking water, though those standards have already faced rollbacks and legal challenges. Meanwhile, consumer awareness has surged, with increasing concern about the presence of these chemicals in everyday products, including clothing.
While the investigation is still in its early stages, it signals a broader shift toward holding companies accountable for how they market “health-conscious” products, particularly when underlying materials may tell a different story.
Worth noting, Paxton is currently locked in a high-profile Republican primary runoff against John Cornyn (R-TX) for a U.S. Senate seat. His investigation also aligns with a broader push inside the Trump administration to crack down on environmental toxins in consumer products. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made similar issues a priority at HHS, including a recent <a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-hhs-announce-historic-actions-protect-americans-microplastics-and-safeguard">joint initiative</a> with the EPA targeting microplastics, which regulators have begun categorizing alongside PFAS as emerging public health risks.
For now, the outcome of the investigation remains unclear. But as scrutiny around PFAS intensifies, companies built on wellness branding may increasingly find themselves under the microscope.

Is Lululemon Using Forever Chemicals?

Forever Chemicals

Ken Paxton

Texas

U.S.

Meta has begun scrubbing ads offering legal help for damages related to social media addiction and the associated harmful behaviors.
According to a <a href="https://www.axios.com/2026/04/09/meta-social-media-addiction-ads">report</a> from Axios on Thursday, Meta has begun pulling ads — from both Facebook and Instagram — that provide users with information about getting legal advice or taking legal action against social media platforms.
Axios quoted an example of one of the ads that was pulled: &#8220;Anxiety. Depression. Withdrawal. Self-harm. These aren&#8217;t just teenage phases — they&#8217;re symptoms linked to social media addiction in children. Platforms knew this and kept targeting kids anyway.&#8221;
Meta has acknowledged that some ads are being removed from the social media platforms, saying that the law firms placing such ads should not be allowed to benefit from the use of Meta&#8217;s platforms while claiming at the same time that Meta was responsible for creating addicts and causing mental health problems.
&#8220;We&#8217;re actively defending ourselves against these lawsuits and are removing ads that attempt to recruit plaintiffs for them. We will not allow trial lawyers to profit from our platforms while simultaneously claiming they are harmful,&#8221; a Meta spokesperson told the outlet.
The report comes just two weeks after a California jury found that both <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/verdict-reached-in-landmark-social-media-media-addiction-trial">Meta</a> and YouTube had contributed to a number of mental health problems — including addiction and related behavior — in a landmark case before the California Superior Court.
A Meta spokesperson protested the verdict, saying at the time, &#8220;We respectfully disagree with the verdict and will appeal. We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and are clear about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors or harmful content. We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online.&#8221;
As The Daily Wire previously reported, social media platforms — including Meta and YouTube — have often touted online safety features in recent years, such as Instagram’s “Teen Accounts” and YouTube “Kids,” which are meant to create safer and more controlled experiences for children. Critics argue that kids — sometimes with willing parents or other adults helping them — are able to bypass those controls and gain access to the full platforms anyway.

Social Media

Meta Shuts Down Ads From ‘Trial Lawyers’ Targeting Social Platform Over Addiction

Meta Doesn't Want Users To Know They May Be Able To Sue For Social Media Harm

Big Tech

Supreme Court

Escalating his legal battle just weeks before a high-stakes federal trial, Elon Musk has <a href="https://betanews.com/article/musk-openai-lawsuit-damages-to-nonprofit/#:~:text=The%20lawsuit%20originally%20sought%20damages,go%20to%20OpenAI's%20nonprofit%20foundation.">amended his lawsuit</a> against OpenAI, demanding the immediate removal of CEO Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman.
The revised filing, submitted this week, also seeks to force the artificial intelligence giant to abandon its for-profit structure and return to its nonprofit roots.
The case is <a href="https://medium.com/@fahey_james/elon-musks-bold-strike-against-openai-seeking-to-oust-sam-altman-and-greg-brockman-in-a-134-1f586f8f6005">scheduled</a> to go before a jury on April 27, 2026, in Oakland, California. The outcome could derail OpenAI’s planned initial public offering (IPO) and set a major precedent for how transformative technologies are governed.
In a strategic shift likely intended to neutralize claims that the lawsuit is fueled by personal greed, Musk’s amended complaint clarifies that he is not seeking to personally collect damages, estimated between $134 billion and $150 billion. Instead, Musk has requested that any recovered funds be directed to OpenAI’s nonprofit arm.
“He is asking the court to return everything that was taken from a public charity,” said Musk’s attorney, Marc Toberoff. Musk reinforced this stance publicly on X, suggesting his sole intent is to restore the organization&#8217;s founding mission.
Musk has <a href="https://www.peoplematters.in/news/business/elon-musk-moves-to-oust-openai-ceo-sam-altman-as-legal-fight-escalates-49152">alleged</a> that Altman and Brockman &#8220;manipulated and misled&#8221; him into providing roughly $38 million in seed funding between 2015 and 2018, based on assurances that OpenAI would remain a non-profit dedicated to open-source artificial general intelligence for the benefit of humanity.
Instead, Musk argues, the leadership engaged in a &#8220;wealth machine&#8221; scheme, effectively turning OpenAI into a &#8220;closed-source de facto subsidiary&#8221; of Microsoft. The filing accuses the executives of fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, and racketeering, claiming they leveraged the reputational and tax benefits of a nonprofit to build a private entity now valued at more than $800 billion.
OpenAI has fired back, describing the lawsuit as a &#8220;frivolous&#8221; campaign driven by &#8220;ego, jealousy, and a desire to slow down a competitor.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Today, at the eleventh hour, Elon lodged a court filing pretending to change his tune about attacking the nonprofit OpenAI Foundation.
The truth is that this case has always been about Elon generating more power and more money for what he wants. Having increasingly realized that…
&mdash; OpenAI Newsroom (@OpenAINewsroom) <a href="https://twitter.com/OpenAINewsroom/status/2041648263078801765?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 7, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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The company recently petitioned the attorneys general of California and Delaware to investigate Musk for alleged &#8220;anti-competitive behavior,&#8221; noting that Musk now operates his own rival AI firm, xAI.
OpenAI’s legal team argues that the pivot to a &#8220;capped-profit&#8221; model was a matter of survival, citing the astronomical costs of developing advanced AI systems, which it says could reach into the hundreds of billions of dollars. The company has also pointed to internal emails from 2017  suggesting Musk himself once supported a for-profit shift, provided he maintained majority control.
The case gained significant momentum in early 2026 following the discovery of the so-called &#8220;Brockman Diaries.&#8221; A handwritten 2017 journal entry by Brockman reportedly characterized the nonprofit structure as &#8220;a lie,&#8221; a piece of evidence U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers cited as critical for the upcoming trial.
The court has already confirmed that high-profile figures, including Altman and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, are expected to testify.
The conflict is rooted in OpenAI&#8217;s 2015 founding. Initially a pure research lab, the organization began shifting its structure shortly after Musk’s departure in 2018:
<ul>
<li data-path-to-node="18,0,0">2015: Founded as a nonprofit; Musk provides initial funding.</li>
<li data-path-to-node="18,1,0">2019: Creates a &#8220;capped-profit&#8221; subsidiary to attract investment, leading to a multi-billion dollar partnership with Microsoft.</li>
<li data-path-to-node="18,2,0">2025: Completes a restructuring into a for-profit public benefit corporation.</li>
<li data-path-to-node="18,3,0">Present: Prepares for a potential late-2026 IPO at a valuation exceeding $850 billion.</li>
</ul>
Legal experts suggest the trial&#8217;s implications reach far beyond a personal feud. A victory for Musk could force OpenAI to restructure and raise new questions about nonprofit governance and donor intent. A win for Open AI could affirm the ability of a nonprofit to evolve into profit-generating enterprises despite donor objections.

Elon Musk and OpenAI

Musk Says The AI Shaping Your Life Pulled A $800B Bait-And-Switch

Elon Musk

Open AI

Sam altman

A federal judge in New York ruled on Thursday to dismiss ten of Blake Lively’s 13 claims against her “It Ends With Us” costar Justin Baldoni, including those related to harassment, defamation, and conspiracy.
Though three of the claims will stand, this is being celebrated as a victory by Baldoni and his legal team. The claims being argued at trial include retaliation, aiding and abetting retaliation, and breach of contract.
“We’re very pleased the Court dismissed all sexual harassment claims and every claim brought against the individual defendants: Justin Baldoni, Jamey Heath, Steve Sarowitz, Melissa Nathan, and Jennifer Abel,” Alexandra Shapiro and Jonathan Bach of Shapiro Arato Bach said in a statement.
“These were very serious allegations, and we are grateful to the Court for its careful review of the facts, law and voluminous evidence that was provided,” the statement went on. “What’s left is a significantly narrowed case, and we look forward to presenting our defense to the remaining claims in court.”
A rep from Lively’s legal team insisted that even though the harassment claims were dropped, it was on a technicality. Sigrid McCawley said her client’s claim against Baldoni “isn’t going forward not because the defendants did nothing wrong but because the court determined Blake Lively was an independent contractor, not an employee,” per <a href="https://people.com/justin-baldoni-reacts-dismissal-blake-lively-sexual-harassment-claims-trial-11941948">People</a>.
“&#8230;the greatest measure of justice is that the people and the playbook behind these coordinated digital attacks have been exposed and are already being held accountable by other women they’ve targeted,” the statement went on.
The legal drama between the former costars started in December 2024 when Lively filed a lawsuit against Baldoni accusing him of sexual harassment, retaliation, and attempting to “destroy” her reputation. This came after she starred opposite Baldoni in “It Ends With Us,” a film he also directed.
Baldoni fervently denied the claims, responding with a countersuit against his co-star and her husband, actor Ryan Reynolds. He also sued The New York Times for $250 million in a defamation claim for an article about the situation, which he says is “rife with inaccuracies, misrepresentations, and omissions.” The countersuit was dismissed by the judge in June 2025.
A trial is scheduled to kick off May 18 in New York.

Blake Lively

Judge Makes Decision On Blake Lively’s Sexual Harassment Claims Against Justin Baldoni

Celebrities

Entertainment

Sexual Harassment

This piece is part of MI x DW, a collaboration that brings Daily Wire readers exclusive commentary and research from the Manhattan Institute’s world-class team of scholars.
In this piece, an exclusive excerpt from a forthcoming City Journal piece, Heather Mac Donald exposes the absurdity of climate litigation, showing how plaintiffs can blame companies around the world for alleged environmental distress. In addition to shining light on these pseudoscientific lawsuits, Mac Donald warns that allowing these cases to continue could seriously undermine the rule of law.
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While the Trump administration has ended for now the federal regulatory war on traditional energy, a litigation war has quietly gathered force. Cities and states are suing American fossil fuel companies for the alleged climate harms those jurisdictions claim to suffer.
The first multibillion-dollar judgment against the industry could unleash a cascade of similar rulings. Leading climate litigator Benjamin Franta estimates that the potential liability runs into the trillions of dollars.
The effect on the American economy would be dire. But equally catastrophic, from a philosophical standpoint, would be the damage to rationality itself. The causal claims behind the climate-change lawsuits insult reason, repudiating the hard-won gains of the Western empirical tradition.
The plaintiffs in the more than three dozen climate suits filed in the United States read like an honor roll of progressive localities: San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Maine, Minnesota, and Massachusetts, among others. Their targets include some of the great industrial concerns of the modern age — ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, and Shell.
So far, the cases have turned on questions of jurisdiction. The defendant oil and gas companies have argued that the city and state plaintiffs are violating the constitutional limits on their power, since they are trying to regulate economic activity outside of their borders. For a while, this argument worked. Judges in Delaware, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and elsewhere tossed climate-change suits out of court on the grounds of federal preemption. But then the defensive wall was breached. Several federal appeals courts and the state supreme courts of Colorado and Hawaii ruled that the global warming suits could continue. Once those trials begin, the plaintiffs’ causal claims will come to the fore.
Every suit blames a particular set of companies for a particular set of climate harms in a particular locality. But one can accept the broad outlines of climate change theory and still reject the plaintiffs’ core causal claims.
Global warming allegedly results from a century and a half of cumulative CO₂ emissions from industrial activity. When trillions of CO₂ molecules accumulate in the upper atmosphere, they affect how heat escapes into space. That means the planet’s atmospheric energy balance is global, not set by any one city or state’s emissions. One CO₂ molecule is indistinguishable from another and cannot be traced to its point of origin.
Yet the climate suits are startlingly precise in pinning responsibility for a locality’s purported climate disasters. An international case provides an almost parodic version of the logic in climate litigation. In 2015, a farmer in the Peruvian Andes sued Germany’s largest electric utility provider for allegedly causing the glacier outside the farmer’s village to melt. We were meant to believe that CO₂ emitted from the utility’s German facilities could be identified and tied to a particular diminishing ice pack in Peru.
While a German court ultimately threw out the case on jurisdictional grounds, it allowed the causal illogic to stand, and it has since been widely replicated. In 2020, 16 Montana youths, aged five to 22, sued the state of Montana, claiming that it had destroyed their prospects for a normal adult life and had inflicted climate-related trauma on them.
Because Montana licensed fossil fuel operations without considering their global warming impacts, argued the plaintiffs, additional CO₂ was emitted in the state. That local incremental CO₂, in turn, caused global warming in Montana, which harmed the 16 children and young adults. In 2023, the judge in Held v. Montana found the state liable for the plaintiffs’ alleged injuries, which included, the judge declared, the increased risk of dying, chronic despair, damage to the liver and kidneys, impaired physical and cognitive development, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and broken bones.
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The causal claim in Held v. Montana is absurd. Global warming is not a local phenomenon. Moreover, even if the extra CO₂ purportedly generated by Montana’s regulatory negligence could be geotagged and traced to the state, it would be trivial compared with the cumulative emissions of every other global source over decades.
The climate bar has adopted an additional causal claim. Oil and gas companies allegedly concealed what they knew about climate change, the plaintiff cities and states assert, and that concealment — amounting to corporate fraud and deception — caused heat waves and forest fires in their jurisdictions.
An ongoing case in Hawaii, Honolulu v. Sunoco, illustrates the reasoning behind this consumer fraud gambit. According to the city and county of Honolulu, over a dozen fossil-fuel producers and marketers caused flooding and erosion in Honolulu by failing to disclose what they allegedly knew about climate change. “But for Defendants’ conduct” in withholding that knowledge, claim the plaintiffs, “the City would have suffered no or far fewer serious injuries and harms than it has endured.”
We will leave aside, for the moment, the truth of the claim that the defendants possessed secret knowledge about global warming. We will also set aside the suspension of disbelief required to accept the argument that a failure to communicate something was the “but-for cause” of rising sea levels. 
Even on its own terms, Honolulu’s argument is fantastical. Here, one must reintroduce the concealed causal link (CO₂) whose absence in the complaint is merely a verbal trick. Data on Honolulu’s energy-related greenhouse-gas emissions are not readily available, but Hawaii’s were about 18 million metric tons in 2021; Honolulu’s share would be maybe half that. The International Energy Agency estimates that fossil fuel combustion produced about 36.3 billion metric tons of CO₂ globally in 2021. Hawaii’s emissions thus represented about 0.05% of the global total; Honolulu’s, maybe 0.025% of the global total.
Yet we are to believe that a 0.025% reduction in global emissions — the result of a hypothetical cessation of Honolulu’s fossil fuel consumption — would have prevented the city’s alleged global warming injuries.
If the causal claims strain credulity, the factual premises are scarcely stronger. The consumer fraud suits now underway all assert that oil and gas companies possessed early, unique knowledge about climate change, which they concealed from an ignorant public and policymaking class for decades. Instead of warning the world about the dangers of fossil fuels, the firms stressed uncertainties in climate models and funded research that critically examined what the New York Times calls the “settled science of climate change.”
But the fuel industry had no monopoly on climate speculations. The federal government has been reporting on anthropogenic global warming since 1965. Since then, warnings in the media about CO₂ emissions have only grown more dire, without having the slightest effect on consumer behavior.
The use of smartphones and AI, jet travel to conferences and vacations, routine reliance on Amazon Prime and food delivery apps, heat in winter and air conditioning in summer, the near-universal consumption of bottled water — all these accoutrements of modern life show no sign of abating in Honolulu or in any of the other communities now suing the sources of their lavish consumer lifestyles.
The explosion of climate litigation is about expropriation and hatred. These lawsuits do nothing to advance the cause of arresting anthropogenic climate change. Sixteen of the top 20 CO₂ emitters in 2023 were state-owned foreign companies, with China dominating. Seven of the top 20 were coal companies — six of them Chinese, with the seventh in India. Private American oil and gas companies account for only a small share of global emissions.
The litigation war on the oil and gas industry reflects the parasitism, entitlement, and ingratitude that now characterize modern Western societies. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund is emblematic. Its billion-dollar philanthropic portfolio exists because of John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil. Rockefeller’s advances in refining, pipelines, transport engineering, and petroleum chemistry transformed the world. Yet today, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund bankrolls efforts to sue Standard Oil’s corporate descendants into submission, if not bankruptcy.
The alternatives to fossil fuels championed by climate litigators are not viable replacements today and will not be for the foreseeable future. Solar and wind power were largely irrelevant during the deadly snow and ice storm that struck a 2,000-mile swath of the United States in January 2026. Without coal, natural gas, and nuclear power, millions more Americans would have lost heat and running water. The crisis in the Strait of Hormuz is a reminder of how essential oil and gas are to nearly every aspect of the world economy.
The Western concept of impersonal causation once undergirded both experimental science and Anglo-American tort law. The belief that causation was regular and measurable enabled the rational control of nature. The legal requirement that a defendant’s unreasonable act actually caused a plaintiff’s injury restrained the human impulse toward vengeance. In the 20th century, however, tort law increasingly shifted from assigning liability for fault to extracting wealth for redistribution by loosening traditional causation standards and weakening the idea of personal responsibility.
Climate litigation takes that earlier erosion of causation to a new level. If judgments against Big Oil are allowed to stand, they will set precedents for wider assaults on private enterprise and the rule of law.
For now, the best hope for halting the raid on Big Oil’s social and economic capital lies in an appeal before the Supreme Court challenging a climate suit out of Boulder, Colorado. At the heart of every such climate case lies a philosophical travesty that reflects a deeper decline in rational thought.
Heather Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal, and a New York Times bestselling author.

TOPSHOT-KENYA-CLIMATE-DEMO

The Climate Litigation Swindle

Climate Change

Heather Mac Donald

MI x DW

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
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When news broke about <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/verdict-reached-in-landmark-social-media-media-addiction-trial">Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube</a> forking over $3 million to a 19-year-old user caught in the spider’s web, my first thought was something like, “Yeah! Screw Mark Zuckerberg!” A tech giant takedown warms the heart. 
My second thought was, “Wait, so can we all sue Facebook now?” What about “Keeping Up With The Kardashians,” espresso martinis, Ben &amp; Jerry’s, Reddit comment sections, IKEA, pressure washing videos, Chick-fil-A, Roblox, weed gummies, March Madness, and Amazon Prime? There are countless other things we can’t quit.
With roughly <a href="https://youtu.be/iwPbm2To4Qw?t=97">10,000</a> other cases in the works against social media at large, it’s game on in the courts. “We’re figuring out that there is a causal connection between cancer and cigarettes,” tech journalist <a href="https://youtu.be/iwPbm2To4Qw?t=416">Jacob Ward</a> told CNN, likening the moment to the <a href="https://www.publichealthlawcenter.org/topics/commercial-tobacco-control/master-settlement-agreement">Big Tobacco</a> settlement of the &#8217;90s. “We’re at the beginning of an absolutely new era in thinking about how social media is really working on kids.” 
Using this analogy, despite raging against the machine, all the kids are still holding full packs of “cigarettes” and “chain smoking.” 
A <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-03-25/social-media-lawsuit-trial-meta-google-verdict">Los Angeles Times</a> headline read: “Landmark L.A. jury verdict finds Instagram, YouTube were designed to addict kids.” Oh really? Was it the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/14/meta-and-google-trial-are-infinite-scroll-and-autoplay-creating-addicts">infinite scroll</a>, autoplay, <a href="https://ioufinancial.com/financial-insights/10-social-media-engagement-tactics-that-can-help-you-grow-your-audience-2/">polls</a>, quizzes, reels, algorithms, notifications, FOMO, or <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11594359/">dopamine dumps</a> that gave it away? Maybe it’s a little confusing since most of us describe our social media feeds as “addictive,” while social media calls this business model “<a href="https://bitly.com/blog/how-to-increase-social-media-engagement/?gad_source=1&amp;gad_campaignid=20610041883&amp;gbraid=0AAAAAC3Maq4pYCZkL2FiRyXbdXH2hxDwC&amp;gclid=CjwKCAjwspPOBhB9EiwATFbi5PLOH9cbbGJVhE56QWJTyENp_urJ-Q3hU4hy3GOj_0_Ywy12R73pwBoCQmcQAvD_BwE">engaging</a>.” Tomato, to-mah-to.
It all made me wonder when the responsibility for making good decisions floated off of our own shoulders and onto the desk of Deborah in HR. This is America. We’re free to like what we like and do what we want, and then sue the crap out of the companies that give us what we desire.
Has anyone ever sued Doritos for being too delicious? Yes. In 2025, <a href="https://cen.acs.org/policy/ultra-processed-food-pfas-pesticide-antibiotic-resistance-atrazine-cancer/103/web/2025/12">San Francisco</a> went after a bunch of snack companies, including Doritos’ parent PepsiCo, for “cheap, colorful, flavorful, and addictive” products, like they were looking directly at a bag of <a href="https://www.doritos.com/products/doritos-dinamita-flamin-hot-queso-flavored-rolled-tortilla-chips">Doritos Dinamita Flamin’ Hot Queso</a>.
Bringing a lawsuit against hot coffee before it was cool, <a href="https://www.caoc.org/?pg=facts#:~:text=At%20least%20one%20juror%20later,attaching%20enough%20importance%20to%20that.%E2%80%9D">79-year-old Stella Liebeck</a> famously won $3 million in damages from <a href="https://www.tortmuseum.org/liebeck-v-mcdonalds/">McDonald’s in 1992</a> after she spilled coffee in her lap, giving herself third-degree burns. It sounds terrible. But McDonald’s didn’t pour hot coffee on Stella; Stella did, while holding it between her legs to add cream and sugar. 
Three years later, the bit appeared on “<a href="https://youtu.be/Qpru2vsqdN8?t=98">Seinfeld</a>” when Kramer scalded his groin with hot coffee in a movie theater. “We got a chance?” Kramer asks his defense attorney, Jackie Chiles. “You get me one coffee drinker on that jury, you’re gonna walk out of there a rich man,” says Chiles.
The scalding liquid lawsuits kept coming. There was the <a href="https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/2017/05/19/starbucks-must-pay-jacksonville-woman-100000-hot-coffee-spill/15755762007/">$100,000 Starbucks payout in 2017</a> after Joanne Mogavero spilled hot coffee on herself. And a high-profile settlement in 2025 paid out <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-awarded-50-million-starbucks-hot-tea-rcna196616">$50 million</a> to 25-year-old Postmates driver <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/14/business/starbucks-hot-coffee-driver-verdict#:~:text=the%20US%20market-,Starbucks%20ordered%20to%20pay%20$50%20million%20to%20delivery%20driver%20burned,and%20onto%20Garcia%2C%20Parker%20said.">Michael Garcia</a>, who spilled hot Starbucks tea in his lap and will be best known by strangers for his “<a href="https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/starbucks-just-got-some-very-bad-news-its-a-timely-warning-for-every-other-company/91164537">penis injury</a>.” 
We also sue for the drugs we misuse. In 2022, Johnson &amp; Johnson and three major distributors finalized a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-business-health-opioids-camden-dec0982c4c40ad08b2b30b725471e000">$26 billion</a> settlement, set to be paid out to just about every state in the U.S. in light of the opioid crisis. In 2025, Purdue Pharma and its owners agreed on a <a href="https://www.attorneygeneral.gov/taking-action/ag-sunday-announces-historic-settlement-with-purdue-pharma-and-sackler-family-regarding-manufacture-distribution-of-opioids-that-fueled-addiction-epidemic/">$7.4 billion</a> settlement for their part in the drug epidemic that continues to <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/overdose-prevention/about/understanding-the-opioid-overdose-epidemic.html#:~:text=The%20rise%20in%20opioid%20overdose,2">rage on</a>. 
But are these high-profile settlements doing anything other than temporarily stinging the pockets of megacorporations? Will people decide to do less drugs, be more careful with their coffee, and skip the Doritos if there’s a federally mandated warning label on the package? We were already eating bright orange, cheese-dusted corn chips. It’s not like we thought they were carrots. 
When one 2024 <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/latino-parents-support-policies-addressing-social-medias-impact-on-childrens-mental-health/">study</a> shared a warning about social media use before asking Latino parents if they were now likely to monitor or limit their kids’ time on the platforms, 76% of them said yes. By then, we’d all heard about the <a href="https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speaking-of-health/social-media-risks-tips-to-keep-your-children-safe">dangers</a>. So what were those parents waiting for?
Sometimes, even severe warnings can have the opposite effect. When I stopped by a bistro in Seattle, forced to weave through a gaggle of duck-costumed PETA protestors holding gruesome posters, I asked the bartender if the anti-foie gras crowd outside affected business. “Every time they’re here, we sell a ton of foie gras,” he said. Zing. 
Mulling over the concept of phone addiction in the middle of the night, I came across a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-27053-2">study</a> showing that some adults assume we’re addicted to social media when we’re actually not. (Yes, I found it on my phone.) Overuse of social media is commonly called “addiction” without looking at the full range of symptoms. 
In <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-27053-2">substance abuse</a>, that looks like “impaired control, craving and dependence, withdrawal when not using, conflict with other activities, and hazardous or risky use,” according to Scientific Reports. But some social media “addicts” described benefits, too: “Facebook users who self-reported greater life conflict and lack of control (two symptoms of addiction) also reported greater positive impacts of Facebook use.”  
There’s a difference between forming a <a href="https://relevancerecovery.com/habit-vs-addiction/">habit versus an addiction</a>. Addiction is always harmful, but habits are not. And calling yourself an addict when you’re engaging in a bad habit lessens your ability to change the behavior. It also increases <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-27053-2">self-blame</a>, which doesn’t help.
Like <a href="https://youtu.be/b1kbLwvqugk?list=RDb1kbLwvqugk&amp;t=48">Taylor Swift</a> sang in “Anti-Hero,” when it comes to getting lost in the doomscroll, “It&#8217;s me. Hi. I&#8217;m the problem, it&#8217;s me.” Maybe it’s time to bring personal responsibility back.
“Accountability is not a dirty word,” licensed professional counselor <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/stress-fracture/202002/it-was-me-i-did-it-why-no-one-takes-accountability-anymore">Jamie Cannon</a> says. “By admitting to our own faults and mistakes, we jettison the victim role and take back the power to change.”
Social media addiction is not yet a formally recognized <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352853225000215">disorder</a>. But the question remains as to whether a multimillion-dollar settlement lets irresponsible adult users off the hook. <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psychiatrys-think-tank/202501/coping-with-problematic-effects-of-social-media">Set time limits</a>, turn off notifications, and know your triggers. Praising the benefits of going phone-free with people you love, <a href="https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/anna-lembke">Stanford University</a> psychiatrist <a href="https://youtu.be/D34KyceGhPE?t=53">Dr. Anna Lembke</a> told the Huberman Lab podcast, “Our collective challenge, and it should be our mission, is to make sure that we are preserving and maintaining offline ways to connect.”

GettyImages-2248540801

Big Tech Made Social Media Addictive, But That’s Not The Whole Story

Facebook

social media addiction

Upstream

There is a not-so-secret war being waged for control of your kid&#8217;s mind.
Who owns your child&#8217;s mind? Social media companies? The government?
Or is it you?
A landmark lawsuit that just sent a gigantic shockwave through Silicon Valley. Meta (Facebook) and YouTube (Google) were found negligent in facilitating social media addiction.
Let’s break down the case that could upend Big Tech, reshape AI regulation, and force a national reckoning over parenting power and responsibility.
The legal case found both companies were negligent in facilitating social media addiction. According to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/25/technology/social-media-trial-verdict.html">The New York Times</a>:
<blockquote>The bellwether case, which was brought by a now 20-year-old woman identified as K.G.M., had accused social media companies of creating products as addictive as cigarettes or digital casinos. Citing features like infinite scroll and algorithmic recommendations, K.G.M. sued Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, and Google’s YouTube, claiming they led to anxiety and depression. &#8230; 
K.G.M., whose first name is Kaley, filed her lawsuit in 2023 against Meta, Snap, YouTube and TikTok. Kaley, who lives in Chico, Calif., said she had begun using social media at age 6 and claimed the sites caused personal injury, including body dysmorphia and thoughts of self harm. </blockquote>
Variety said that the verdict was rooted in an argument around cigarette addiction. Back in the 1990s, there were settlements with the big tobacco companies where it was found that the tobacco companies fraudulently marketed products they knew were addictive as non-addictive, and that drew millions of people into serious health risks like lung cancer.
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That doesn&#8217;t seem like a crazy take. We were told originally that social media would be a gigantic benefit for all of us. It would open “new vistas.” We&#8217;d all experience “new worlds.” We&#8217;d have “so many friends.” (Yeah, they&#8217;d be Facebook friends, but they were still friends.) We&#8217;d never have to go outside again. We&#8217;d all live in the metaverse, etc.
All of that was untrue. All of these social media companies are clickbait machines. That is what they are designed to do, in Pavlovian style.
Stanford psychiatrist Anna Lembke, who wrote a book called “Dopamine Nation,” speaks about this. She writes:
<blockquote>We&#8217;re wired to connect. It&#8217;s kept us alive for millions of years in a world of scarcity and ever-present danger. Moving in tribes safeguards against predators optimizes scarce resources and facilitates pair bonding.
Our brains release dopamine when we make human connections, and that incentivizes us to do it again. Social connection has now become drugified by social media apps, making us vulnerable to compulsive overconsumption. These apps can cause the release of large amounts of dopamine into our brains’ reward pathway all at once, like heroin. meth or alcohol. They do that by amplifying the feel-good properties that attract humans to each other in the first place.</blockquote>
It&#8217;s not just the social connection. It&#8217;s also because when you scroll on X, it&#8217;s literally designed to provide a brief dopamine rush. That&#8217;s why there&#8217;s that little sound effect. It&#8217;s almost a literal Pavlovian response. A Pavlovian response was established when you rang a bell in front of a dog and fed it a piece of meat at the same time. Eventually, when you rang the bell, the dog would start to salivate even if the meat wasn&#8217;t there because the brain had now been trained: Bell means meat, so bell causes salivation.
Social media companies do that too. This is why when you scroll, there&#8217;s a little sound effect. You&#8217;re going to get a dopamine hit, even if nothing new appears, just because you hear that little sound effect. 
Social media companies are arguing that they&#8217;re not the ones who are actually causing the addiction to really serious stuff. They say, “Sure, our algorithms are designed to make you click, but it&#8217;s the videos themselves that are responsible for the harm, not the design of the product.” 
In other words, if you were watching lots of cooking videos on social media and it fed you an infinite loop of cooking videos and not skinny influencers, you&#8217;d be totally fine. You&#8217;re the one who decides whether you are clicking on skinny influencers or whether you&#8217;re clicking on cooking videos. And what&#8217;s more, it turns out, these social media companies aren&#8217;t the ones who are actually making the content. The social media companies say, &#8220;We&#8217;re a platform, like a phone line.&#8221;
Yes, they make money by featuring viral content, but the consumer picks which content to actually watch. The person posting the content is actually responsible for the content, unless it&#8217;s an AI or a bot these days.
Until now, social media companies have been avoiding legal culpability by citing Section 230. Section 230 says that if you&#8217;re a platform and your website has a comment section, you&#8217;re not responsible for what&#8217;s in the comments.
If you&#8217;re YouTube, you&#8217;re not responsible for the content of the videos that are on YouTube because you&#8217;re just providing the platform on which others can post.
Section 230 says that all of these platforms ought not be held liable for content produced by others.
But that&#8217;s not on point.
The actual argument here is that these social media sites are, by their very nature, addictive, and that almost no matter what the content is, the medium is damaging to kids.
This raises a broader question for parents. Are you responsible for your children and their social media use?
The answer here should be yes.
My kids aren&#8217;t on social media because they are banned from using social media. Kids who are addicted to TV also don&#8217;t have great lives, but we don&#8217;t actually hold TV companies responsible for that fact. Nobody&#8217;s suing Apple because your kid is watching Apple TV all day.
That&#8217;s a point made yesterday by Meta&#8217;s president, Dina Powell McCormick, who said, “You know, as a mom, this is really important to me and very personal. I see firsthand just how hard the company is trying to ensure that there&#8217;s not harmful content, to ensure that we are empowering parents to the best of our ability. And it&#8217;s something that I watch being focused on every single day. We respectfully disagree with that decision, and we&#8217;re appealing.”
She&#8217;s not totally wrong here. The fact is that as a parent of four kids, going on five, I&#8217;m all over what my kids are consuming. I decide what movies they watch. I decide what TV shows they watch. They&#8217;re not allowed on social media. They do not have interactive capability on social media, anything like that.
This issue is kind of a sticky wicket, as social media companies are responsible for part of the problem because of the dopamine response. And yes, parents are also responsible for the problem.
Here&#8217;s the actual solution: not gigantic lawsuits. The answer is governmental legislation banning social media for kids under 18. Period.
That is what we should be doing. It&#8217;s what a lot of countries are doing right now — and they are correct to do so.
Users should have to register as over 18. Companies that don&#8217;t do it should be held legally accountable.
If we&#8217;re going to actually carry this analogy all the way through, if we&#8217;re going to treat social media like tobacco or alcohol, then the answer historically wasn&#8217;t to sue tobacco companies for kids smoking, it was to ban kids from smoking. The same is true for alcohol.
The reason I&#8217;m a little bit averse to lawsuits like these is because I think it will be extended to adults. I think what&#8217;s going to happen is that this will be used as a broader argument, not just against social media, where I’m relatively indifferent, but to actual useful technologies like AI, because this is a big societal question: Should we blame technology for our own failures as adults?
Kids are a different story. The reason that this particular lawsuit is emotionally appealing is because it&#8217;s about a kid who got addicted. And kids do get addicted. And honestly, I blame the parents as the primary source.
I don&#8217;t let my kids get addicted to things. It&#8217;s my job to prevent that. I don&#8217;t give my kids candy bars even though they want candy bars every single day, all the time. And if I decide to feed that to them, and they get Type 2 diabetes. I don&#8217;t think that&#8217;s on the candy company. I think it&#8217;s on me.
My biggest problem here is that we start blaming technologies for our failures as adults.
We have to look to ourselves to solve some of these problems.

Meta And Youtube Found Liable In Social Media Addiction Lawsuit

Did Social Media Destroy The Kids?

Opinion

Teenagers

YouTube

A Los Angeles County jury found that Meta and YouTube have contributed to growing mental health problems stemming from social media use.
The social media giants must now pay $3 million in damages over personal injury caused by its platforms. The verdict is expected to influence similar suits throughout the country filed against social media companies.
The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bellwether-social-media-addiction-trial-puts-instagram-youtube-and-tiktok-in-the-crosshairs">case</a> in the California Superior Court centered on a 19-year-old woman, referred to as K.G.M., who argued that social media platforms have knowingly designed their platforms to get children and young users addicted. The California jury found Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, 70% responsible for the harm to K.G.M. and YouTube 30% responsible, NBC News <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/verdict-reached-landmark-social-media-addiction-trial-rcna263421">reported</a>.
The verdict comes after a New Mexico jury handed Meta a $375m bill in civil penalties after it found the company misled consumers about the safety of its platforms. Like the landmark case in Los Angeles, the New Mexico verdict is historic on its own as the first jury trial to find Meta liable for acts committed on its platform. Like the Los Angeles Court Verdict, Meta has said it will appeal the ruling.
“We respectfully disagree with the verdict and will appeal. We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and are clear about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors or harmful content,” said a Meta spokesperson. “We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online.”
In a statement to The Daily Wire in January, YouTube said the allegations it faces in social media addiction suits “are simply not true.”
“Providing young people with a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work,” said YouTube spokesman José Castañeda. “In collaboration with youth, mental health and parenting experts, we built services and policies to provide young people with age-appropriate experiences, and parents with robust controls. The allegations in these complaints are simply not true.”
K.G.M.&#8217;s social media addiction, which started when she was a minor, resulted in crippling depression, body dysmorphia, and suicidal thoughts, according to the lawsuit. The suit was also filed against Snapchat and TikTok, but those platforms settled with K.G.M. before the trial started. K.G.M.’s case is just the first of many that are expected to trial this year, targeting Snapchat, Meta, TikTok, and YouTube, which is owned by Google.
Social media platforms, including Meta and YouTube, have touted online safety features in recent years, such as Instagram&#8217;s &#8220;Teen Accounts&#8221; and YouTube &#8220;Kids,&#8221; which are meant to create safer and more controlled experiences for children. Yet even with these additional features, social media use for children remains a hotly debated issue.

Social Media Platforms –  Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, X, LinkedIn, Reddit, TikTok, Threads

Verdict Reached In Landmark Social Media Addiction Trial

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Actor Bill Cosby, 88, has been ordered to pay almost $60 million in damages to a woman who accused him of sexually assaulting her in 1972, a Southern California jury ruled on Monday.
The civil case was brought by Donna Motsinger in 2023 under a California law allowing certain decades-old sexual abuse claims to proceed. The former waitress alleged that Cosby followed her home from work, invited her into his limousine, and gave her a pill he identified as aspirin. She said she began to lose consciousness after taking the pill and awoke nearly naked at her home, according to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/woman-sued-bill-cosby-sexual-battery-awarded-192-million-rcna264800">NBC News</a>.
“She woke up in her house with all her clothes off, except her underwear on — no top, no bra, and no pants. She knew she had been drugged and raped by Bill Cosby,” the lawsuit alleged.
&#8220;This verdict is not just about me — it’s about finally being heard and holding Mr. Cosby accountable,&#8221; Motsinger said in a statement via her lawyers. “I have carried the weight of what happened to me for more than 50 years. It never goes away. Today, a jury saw the truth and held him accountable.&#8221; 
Cosby has denied the allegations and plans to appeal the verdict, his attorneys said.
The case is one of several civil lawsuits filed against the formerly beloved star of “The Cosby Show” in recent years.  Dozens of women have <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bill-cosby-found-liable-for-sexual-battery">accused Cosby</a> of harassment, rape, and sexual misconduct, though many claims were previously barred by statutes of limitations. 
Cosby was convicted in 2018 on three counts of aggravated indecent assault against Andrea Constand. However, his conviction was overturned in 2021 by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, leading to his release after nearly three years in prison.
In 2022, a Los Angeles jury found Cosby liable for sexually assaulting Judy Huth at the Playboy Mansion in the 1970s and awarded her $500,000 in damages. Additional lawsuits in Nevada remain pending.
Cosby has consistently denied all allegations against him.

Bill Cosby

Bill Cosby May Be Out Of Prison But A Decades-Old Case Just Came Roaring Back

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