> "This case is as easy as A-B-C," Lanier said as he stacked children's toy blocks bearing the letters.

> He contended the A was for addicting, the B for brains and the C for children.

I gotta admit, I find this really trivial and silly that this is how court cases go, but I understand that juries are filled of all sorts of people and lawyers I guess feel the need to really dumb things down? Or maybe it's the inner theater kid coming out?

Jury selection weeds out the enthusiasts who want to be on a jury, the people who can manage to get out of it, and the people who have too much domain knowledge related to the case.

The lawyers are performers in a play, to some extent. Theatricality can pay off, in the right amounts.

These were the opening remarks of the lawyers on one side. You’re right that it’s theater, because they’re trying to hook the jury with an idea and get it to stick.

It’s also not a great sign that they’re relying on such tricks and props to hook the jury. In stronger cases they’ll rely on actual facts and key evidence, not grand but abstract claims using props like this.

I don’t know how the rest of the opening remarks went, but from the article it looks like Meta’s lawyers are already leaning into the actual evidence (or lack thereof) that their products were central to the problems:

> Meta attorney Paul Schmidt countered in opening remarks to the jury that evidence will show problems with the plaintiff's family and real-world bullying took a toll on her self-esteem, body image and happiness rather than Instagram.

> "If you took Instagram away and everything else was the same in Kaley's life, would her life be completely different, or would she still be struggling with the same things she is today?" Schmidt asked, pointing out an Instagram addiction is never mentioned in medical records included in the evidence.

Obviously this is HN and we’re supposed to assume social media is to blame for everything, but I would ask people to try not to be so susceptible to evidence-free narrative persuasion like the ABC trick. Similar tricks were used years ago when it was video games, not social media, in the crosshairs of lawyers looking to extract money and limit industries. Many of the arguments were the same, such as addicting children’s brains and being engineered to capture their attention.

There’s a lot of anger in the thread about Discord starting to require ID checks for some features, but large parts of HN aren’t making the connection to these lawsuits and cases as the driving factor behind these regulations. This is how it happens, but many are cheering it on without making the connection. Or they are welcoming regulations but they have a wishful thinking idea that they’re only going to apply to sites they don’t use and don’t like, without spilling over into their communication apps and other internet use.

It's all about putting things into the juries head that they can remember and draw back to once they're in deliberation. Word-puzzles like those tries to imprint "addicting, brains, children", so those things will be more prominent during the deliberation.

> > He contended the A was for addicting, the B for brains and the C for children.

I thought it was Always Be Closing.

> I guess feel the need to really dumb things down?

Or making things simple, emotional and memorable?

Its an oral speech - needs to be memorable. Mnemonics do that.

It's how media works, not a representation of the jury's mental capabilities. For media, you need to have the simplest idea in a visual form if you want to have any chance to make it stick - especially when you're fighting against a trillion dollar attention-addiction industry with billions of lobbying dollars to defend their cash cow.

It is only the opening argument! The technical stuff will come later, I'm sure

That sort of "ABC" simplicity is just good rhetoric.