A very interesting judgement in a US court emerged late yesterday. The tech giants, Google and Meta were found liable for a woman’s social media addiction in a landmark lawsuit. A jury in Los Angeles found Instagram, which is owned by Meta, and YouTube, which is owned by Google, were responsible for harm caused to the 20-year-old – awarding her $6m in damages. Meta and Google both said they disagree with the verdict and plan to appeal. But it is been seen as a bellwether decision that will inform hundreds more cases against social media companies for creating addictive algorithms. This case has enormous implications for the way in which the social media companies operate and accumulate vast wealth and the judgement strikes at the heart of their algorithms. But it is fascinating that a US jury has found the use of social media to be addictive and potentially harmful to the mental health of millions of teenagers. Of course, the big tech companies have the ability and the funds to appeal over and over again and no doubt any legal cases may drag on the years. But there are potentially thousands of similar court cases waiting in the pipeline and we may be seeing just the start to a big fight back the power of the large tech giants. Regulatory legislation is being debated in our own House of Commons and Australia has banned the use of mobile phones for under 16’s which is interesting in its own right. To underline this point, the combined market capitalisation of top tech firms—led by Nvidia, Apple, and Microsoft—exceeds $12 trillion, a figure higher than the total GDP of every country except the United States and China. I think this is a case where no individual country can take on the might of the huge giants but one hopes that the combined resources of the EU, including for the purpose of this argument the UK, might be able to exert some influence. The day promised to be an exceptionally busy one today as the shopping will have to be fitted in somewhere and there is Tai Chi, an introductory conversational Spanish U3A course and an audiology appointment to be fitted in somewhere. Days occur like this sometimes when there is a cluster of appointments to be managed somehow. In the Iran war, we now have a very bizarre prospect unfolding. The Iranian foreign minister has been spared after Pakistan warns US no one would be left for talks. Israel has taken Iran’s foreign minister off its list of assassination targets after an intervention by Pakistan, a Pakistani official told Reuters. Abbas Araqchi and parliamentary speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf were on the hit-list until Pakistan asked Washington not to kill them, who in turn requested Israel to ‘back off’, the official said. Araqchi has become an increasingly prominent Iranian political figure since the start of the war and the killing of several top Iranian officials. So we now have the situation in which the assassination of top Iranian officials has been halted so that there are sufficiently political important people remaining with whom to negotiate. As Trump is blowing so hot and cold, it is unclear whether we are on the verge of a peace deal or not as Trump continues to issue blood curdling threats if the Iranians do not agree to his own ‘peace plan'(unconditional surrender) but it is not for nothing that Trump has earned the label ‘Taco’ which is a shorthand for the expression that ‘Trump always chickens out’
Later in the morning, I attended my normal Tai Chi class, although I did miss last week’s session. When the class was over, I indulged in my normal coffee and teacake with some of the regulars before I needed to leave to get my weekly shopping done. Fortunately, it was quite a light week this week about which I was pleased if only because I could quickly get things put away and then a quick lunch prepared. This afternoon was to be the first in our Conversational Spanish and was to be held in a local village community centre. Fortunately, I was able to locate this fairly easily using the SatNav and as I had arrived about 15 minutes early, I assisted the convenor in putting out some tables and chairs so that we could have a good round table discussion. As well as myself there were four other members in the group. One of these was a teacher of French and Spanish who had been teaching the subjects in schools for about 30 years so she was light years ahead of the rest of us. Then there were two other female members of the group who were very much at a basic level but were trying very hard to understand and to keep up, Finally, there was a quietly spoken physicist whose level of Spanish was about the same as mine. I know my own grammatical constructions leaves quite a lot to be desired not ever having been formally taught the language but the conversation flowed easily enough as the occasion demanded. I had the feeling, tough, that my accent and intonation might have been a tad better than that of the school teacher but it is very early days yet. This time around, we were mainly introducing ourselves but next time we are going to have a more thematic chat about holiday experiences in Spain. The village hall we were in was a bit cavernous and one of the heaters had failed so we rather huddled in our coats but we may try and find a venue, preferably for free, which is a bit more conducive to the needs and budgets of a small group (as we need to raise the cost pf the hire of the hall between us at each session) It could well be that we finish up around the table in the refreshment area of one of our local garden centres where we know there is plenty of parking and it is easy to find. After this meeting had finished, I needed to find my way cross-country for a routine audiology check in our local district hospital and this was fairly routine with nothing much to report. Nonetheless, I was very glad to get this busy day behind me and the U3A groups are small then it is important that the group manages to develop and sustain its own momentum so that everybody will be encouraged to continue to participate. Evidently, even if one or two members drop out then the group may not be able to sustain itself so I suppose it is important that each group member tries to give advice, support, assistance and encouragement to each other.