PRESS REVIEW – Thursday, March 26: We look at reactions after Meta and YouTube were found guilty of social media harms in what is being hailed as a "landmark" trial. Will it give impetus to thousands of other lawsuits in the waiting? Also: Italy's Giorgia Meloni headed to Algeria in a lightning-quick diplomatic visit aimed at securing gas supplies. Plus: Vogue's publisher Conde Nast goes to court with a canine magazine called... Dogue.
We start with reactions to the landmark US trial that found Meta and YouTube guilty of facilitating social media addiction. A Los Angeles jury has found Mark Zuckerberg's Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram; and Google, which owns video platform YouTube, guilty of negligence and ordered them to pay $6 million in damages. The plaintiff, known as Kaley at trial, said she got hooked on social media at the age of six, when she began using YouTube. At the age of nine, she circumvented parental restrictions and started using Instagram. She argues that social media use affected her mental health and self-worth.
Could this be social media's "Big Tobacco moment?" Fortune magazine calls the verdict a "bellwether case" that could set a precedent in thousands of similar lawsuits and force Silicon Valley to rethink features that keep users endlessly scrolling. The Washington Post says the verdict will boost hopes that courts will deliver what is seen as a long-sought reckoning over the harms of social media. It comes right after a jury in New Mexico trial found Meta guilty of endangering children and ordered it to pay $375 million in damages.
However, not everyone sees this as a positive outcome. The Wall Street Journal argues that this verdict will be the beginning of a "shakedown of social media" companies. It says that trial lawyers will use the LA verdict to "recruit more plaintiffs" and ironically may even use social media to do so. The paper sees the verdict as encouraging a shakedown more than enacting sweeping social change.
In other news, Italy's Giorgia Meloni has met with Algeria's president in a diplomatic visit aimed at securing gas supplies. The Italian prime minister made a "lightning-quick" visit to the capital Algiers on Wednesday. La Repubblica explains that she had one purpose: securing gas supplies. The war in Iran has severely dented Qatar's liquified natural gas shipments, on which Italy depends. Meloni and Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune announced a plan to develop joint gas exploration projects. The bad news, though, is that Algeria has little surplus gas ready for export. Ahead of elections next year, La Repubblica says this visit was also about Meloni showing voters that she is trying to fix the problem, as the gas energy crisis could be a big electoral issue.
In the Algerian press, El Watan says Algeria "honours its responsibilities" on its front page, echoing comments by Tebboune at a joint press conference with Meloni on Wednesday. Akhbar El-Youm, an Arab-language Algerian daily, sees Algeria as a trusted partner of Europe.
Elsewhere, the People's Choice winner from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards has been announced for 2026. The competition run by Britain's Natural History Museum awarded Austrian photographer Josef Stefan with the People's Choice prize. His stunning photo was taken in Spain and features a young Iberian lynx tossing a rodent into the air before killing and eating it. This year's runner-up photo is also stunning. "Beauty Against the Beast" by Swiss photographer Alexandre Brisson depicts a flamboyance of flamingos standing out against the bleak industrial backdrop of power lines at a bird sanctuary in Namibia.
Finally, the Times of London reports that Vogue magazine's publisher has filed a lawsuit against a parody fanzine dedicated to dogs. Olga Portnaya set up the brilliantly named Dogue, a free online magazine, in 2019 as a joke. She puts labradoodles in trenchcoats and greyhounds in opera gloves. But Conde Nast, which owns Vogue, has filed a lawsuit saying that Dogue's logo intended to confuse its readers by suggesting a link between the two and accusing it of trademark infringement. The problem is that in 2024, Vogue's website published a digital issue dedicated to celebrity dogs which was also called Dogue. Portnaya says they are just jealous that they did not think of the idea first and is vowing to fight the complaint on behalf of all independent creators. We will see if Vogue has a leg to stand on in this paw-suit.
You can catch our press review every morning on France 24 at 7:20am and 9:20am (Paris time), from Monday to Friday.
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