Kansas justitieminister: Stämningsansökan mot Meta kommer sannolikt att få nationella konsekvenser | NTD NYHETER

And joining us now to discuss what's happening at that Oakland courthouse is Kansas Attorney General Chris Kovach. Attorney General, great to have you with us here. So your state is actually one of the 29 that have sued Meta. For our viewers, what is it exactly that you're seeking to hold them accountable for? It's some of the same things that the guests on the National Mall were just talking about. There are 29 states suing. We are suing under our own individual state Consumer Protection Acts, which typically penalize companies that misrepresent or lie to consumers about their product and what the product's risks are. And we're also suing under the Federal Child Online Privacy Protection Act. There's already been a motion for summary judgment in our favor that Meta is indeed violating that federal act. Today's the first day of the actual trial. The case was filed a long time ago, in October 2023, and filed by a bipartisan group of attorneys general. You have Republicans like me, and you also have Democrats like Attorney General Bonta in California, which is hosting the lawsuit. And in addition to that, you have eight other states that are suing individually on state law grounds in their individual states. So you've got a total of 37 states going after Meta for these features. And just to give you an example of how addictive they are, many viewers will be familiar with the infinite scroll feature. The screens keep bringing one item after another. And the algorithm will measure how long your kid's eyes remain focused on a screen before they swipe to the next one, and then will feed the child more of what the child is curious about. And so it just pulls them in. And then on top of the addictiveness, you have lots of psychologically damaging things that are going on in these platforms, causing things like body shaming and things like that. A lot of negative psychological harms to children as well. I think most parents would agree it's just extremely unhealthy to be on any type of screen for any length of time, let alone something that is proactively sort of subtly addicting the user who is of young age. In addition to seeking billions of dollars from Meta, states are also actually demanding changes to Meta's social media platforms. In what ways are social media sites like Instagram harming children and teens? You just touched on a few. If you could elaborate a bit more. So let's look at that infinite scrolling feature. There are ways to make that less harmful, and you're absolutely right. We are demanding that there be an injunction, a judicial ruling forcing Meta to change its practices. You can put timeouts on the feature so that the individual won't be endlessly scrolling endlessly. You can put overall time limits. You can have stricter age limits, limiting certain features to children of a very young age. There are all kinds of things we are asking for here to make it safer for kids to be on these platforms. And, you know, parents like me and like many of the viewers undoubtedly know just how difficult it is when your teenager or your child younger than the teens just gets locked in to this device and sort of zones out from the rest of the world. Really fascinating. Not too many bipartisan issues anymore, sadly, but this one obviously is. Yourself in Kansas as a Republican, you mentioned the attorney general of California. You know, in March, a California jury found Meta and YouTube legally liable for creating products that ultimately led to harmful and addictive behavior. How will that legal precedent impact this case, in your opinion? It will affect. So the case is kind of an interesting combination. We have this one federal statute that we're all sitting under, but we do have differences in our state statutes. So a precedent like that will almost certainly have an effect on what penalties are imposed in California. But, you know, Meta itself doesn't want to have 50 different standards. So it's likely that this case will have national implications and any injunction will have a national impact, you know, because Meta doesn't want to modify its practices depending on what state the viewer is in. So we anticipate that we will be achieving a uniform improvement across the country. Now, Attorney General, you've actually secured another pretty substantial victory in court this month, blocking the federal government from requiring firearms suppressors to be registered. Tell us a little bit about this case. You know, this is a really interesting case. Fifteen states brought this case along with some private plaintiffs like Gun Owners of America and Silencer Shop and others. Back in 1934, Congress imposed a special regime of registration and taxation on suppressors and a few other firearms items. Suppressors are basically noise reduction devices on the barrel of a gun. They're not silencers like in the James Bond films. They just reduce the sound to about the sound of a firecracker, and it preserves people's hearing. Anyway, the big, beautiful bill of 2025 reduced the tax from $200 to zero. And when it no longer had any revenue-raising feature, it could no longer legally be called a tax. And so the law itself became unconstitutional, and the continuing regulation of suppressors and registration of suppressors by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms became unconstitutional. And when the ATF, which is part of the Department of Justice, didn't immediately, after the 2025 big, beautiful bill, stop these unconstitutional regulations, we sued, and we won a big victory in federal court two weeks ago. And then an injunction went into effect last week. And so as many gun owners are well aware, there's now much more freedom in buying these perfectly safe products that have been unconstitutionally regulated for some time now. Kansas Attorney General Chris Kobach, really appreciate your time. Thank you.