A Social Reckoning 🧑‍⚖️⚖️

👀 TLDR

In this week’s What’s Appening, we cover the landmark trial that saw social media companies pay a young woman millions of dollars in damages for negligence leading to social media addiction. The case is being treated as a huge bellwether, and it may open the floodgates for more lawsuits and big regulatory changes. We also salute Apple on its 50th birthday this week, and we take a look at the app trying to price every pint in Ireland. We have the latest on the Sora shutdown, the backlash against Bluesky’s new AI app, and more!

🎬 Our Top Take

📱📵 Social Media – Addiction Trial Victory Could Open Floodgates

If we had a dollar for every time a Big Tech company faced the courts in an important lawsuit….but last week felt a little different. In this case, it was Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and Google (YouTube) up against a young woman, known as Kaley, seeking damages for social media addiction. Reader, Kaley won, receiving millions in compensation as the companies were found to be negligent. The thing is: this case was not frivolous, and Meta and Google threw everything at the defense, but the jury voted 10-2 in favor of Kaley, shining a light on the tactics used to hook us to those platforms. The case gained international attention as a bellwether trial, and now we can expect more lawsuits to be brought forward. To us, it feels like the crest of a bigger wave, coupled with the bans and looming bans for minors (Australia, France, Spain, the UK) that will irrevocably change social media. We’ve seen Wednesday’s decision described as being on a par with the landmark wins in the Big Tobacco trials of the 1990s. It remains to be seen whether it will be that significant, but it's on the right track. #SocialNightmare Read more here.

📲 App of the Week: The Guinndex

Inflation is on everyone’s minds right now, and while you may be looking at the price of gas at the pump, many of us look at the price of a pint. Such was the thinking behind The Guinndex, a platform that aims to list the price of a pint of Guinness in every pub in Ireland – think of it like GasBuddy for creamy pints of stout. Anyway, what caught our attention – beyond its use case and similar mission statement to our own work with Shift – was the fact that many of the prices were sourced using an AI agent called “Rachel”. Rachel, complete with her friendly Northern Irish accent. was able to call thousands of the pubs to get much of the data. You can check out the Guinndex right here.

🧐 Stat of the Week: $1B PER DAY

📈📉 Sora – OpenAI Shutters App and Ends Disney Deal

Hmmm, probably not great news for OpenAI. It has decided to shut down the standalone Sora app, though it will be integrated into other products like ChatGPT. Still, the move has ended the intellectual property deal with Disney. We can’t verify the reports exactly, but there were some estimates that Sora was costing OpenAI up to $1 billion per day. That’s a high cost for what is, very often, slop. #SeeYaSora Read more here.

🗞️ Other Stories

Apple – World Reflects on 50 Years Since Its Founding

We couldn’t put the newsletter out today without special mention of Apple’s 50th birthday tomorrow. April 1st, 1976, saw its founding by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and the lesser-known Ronald Wayne. And well, you know the rest: 3 billion iPhones, millions of Macs and iPads, the iPod, Watch, AirPods (including those you lost while out running), and so many life-changing apps. It’s difficult to think of a more consequential company in the 21st century. Happy Birthday, Apple. It’s been quite the ride.

📍 Meanwhile at 3Advance

When a widely used software building block is compromised, it can quietly affect thousands of apps at once – without anyone ever touching those apps directly. 3Advance CPTO, Darren Gibney, broke down a recent high-profile example and what it means for development teams moving fast in the AI era. Check out Darren's post here.