The argument that research was suppressed and this is somehow damning is absurd on its face. The most obvious reason being that they obviously didn't do a very good job of suppressing it given that we hear this claim every day. The second being that they could have just not done this research at all and then there would have been nothing to "suppress" (this terminology is also very odd... if 3M analyzes different sticky notes and concludes that their competitors sticky notes are better than theirs but does not release the results, is that suppression?). The third is that studies with the same results have come out probably every year since 2010 and have been routinely cited in the mainstream press. Lastly, it ignores that many platforms have actually responded to research about potential harms of social media by implementing safeguards on teen accounts.

Look at the plaintiff in this case: it's a mentally unstable person who blames her life problems on social media. Never mind the fact that she had been diagnosed with mental illnesses as an early teen, or that an overwhelming majority of people who use social media don't develop eating disorders or other mental illnesses as a result of it (and in fact the incidence of say bulimia peaked 30 years ago in spite of almost universal social media adoption among young people). This is not at all like smoking where 15% of smokers will get lung cancer.

And due to some absurd legal reasoning the plaintiff was allowed to pseudonymously extort $3 million out of tech companies. Worst of all I see people on a technology forum applauding this out of some sort of resentment towards large companies!

Nobody ever accused these companies of being competent at suppressing the research (which includes third parties btw, not just internal).

Companies do this research for all sorts of reasons (including legal compliance, demonstrating due diligence to regulators, to understand users and improve products, etc etc etc). For example, it's not like Zuck commissioned an internal study to show how they're harming children, more like some internal team was seeking to understand why kids love a certain feature which led them to conclusions that make the company look bad.

To your third point, that research is usually leaked by whistleblowers or conducted by third parties, not because of the altruism of these companies.

Finally, the platforms aren't doing enough and with this court case, it seems like they've persisted in finding ways to hook children because of financial incentives.

The sources cited in this article are a good primer for understanding what these companies are doing: https://www.transparencycoalition.ai/news/meta-suppressed-re...

> The argument that research was suppressed and this is somehow damning is absurd on its face.

The argument is not that it is vaguely "somehow damning".

The argument is that the existence of the research and its findings, and that it was in the hands of the firms, and that the actively chose to suppress it, is evidence of one specific fact relevant to liability—that, at the time that they made relevant business decisions that occurred around or after the review and decision to suppress the reports, they had knowledge of the facts contained in the report.

> The most obvious reason being that they obviously didn't do a very good job of suppressing it given that we hear this claim every day.

The success of suppression is not relevant to what the decision to suppress is used to prove.

> The second being that they could have just not done this research at all and then there would have been nothing to "suppress"

The fact that, had they made different decisions previously, they would not have had knowledge of the facts that they actually had when they made later business decisions is also not relevant to what the existence and suppression of the research is used to prove.

> (this terminology is also very odd... if 3M analyzes different sticky notes and concludes that their competitors sticky notes are better than theirs but does not release the results, is that suppression?).

It would obviously be suppression of the report (which isn't a legal term of art but a plain-language descriptive term), but unless they later made fact claims about their product that were contrary to what was in the suppressed report and were being sued for fraud or false advertising, that suppression probably wouldn't be useful as evidence of anything that would produce legal liability.

> The third is that studies with the same results have come out probably every year since 2010 and have been routinely cited in the mainstream press.

Which is addditional, though weaker, evidence of the firms knowledge of the same conclusions (weaker, because its pretty hard to prove that the firm had particular knowledge of any of those studies, but it is pretty easy to prove that they had knowledge of the studies that there is documentation of the commissioning, reviewing, discussing internally, and deciding to suppress.)

But it doesn't in any way counter the weight of the evidence of the suppressed reports, it weighs in the same direction, just in much smaller measure.

The "overwhelming majority" standard for harm seems odd when you use 15% of smokers getting harmed as an example. 15% is not an overwhelming majority.

The jury disagrees with you.

>This is not at all like smoking where 15% of smokers will get lung cancer.

Unfortunately for you and social media sites, the legal standard for defective products has no "percentage" of people harmed to incur liability. Product liability is showing product was defectively designed and caused foreseeable harm to a specific plaintiff.

> absurd legal reasoning

It's certainly not surprising you think protecting minors in legal cases (she was a minor when the case was filed) is "absurd legal reasoning".

Addressing the actual legal questions in the case might be more fruitful than hurling shit against a wall.