Big Tech's Day In Court, Grok Spurs Action from Senate
This week in The Dispatch, we cover Big Tech's social media addiction trials, a plan for data centers, and Grok's role in passing the DEFIANCE Act
Welcome back to The Dispatch from The Tech Oversight Project, your weekly updates on all things tech accountability. Follow us on Twitter at @Tech_Oversight and @techoversight.bsky.social on Bluesky.
📰 MAKING SENSE OF BREAKING NEWS: On the eve of the trial, Snap reached an agreement with a plaintiff to settle its individual social media addiction case. The settlement means Snap will avoid a trial in which plaintiffs were expected to present damning evidence that the company has been peddling an inherently defective product.
🔄 ENTER THE SPIN ROOM: To be clear: There’s only one reason why Snap would settle on the eve of trial. That's because the evidence they hoped would never see the light of day was about to become public. Our guess? It was utterly damning, and there was potential for CEO Evan Spiegel to perjure himself or finally admit that his company has been lying to the world for years. All of that was too great a risk for the company to take.
⏭️ SO WHAT'S NEXT: Unfortunately for Snap, there are more cases at stake in this landmark trial, and the full depravity of Snap, Google, Meta, and TikTok will be on display beginning January 27th. We look forward to these Big Tech companies being held accountable in a court of law and to families obtaining some of the justice they deserve.
⚖️ LANDMARK SOCIAL MEDIA TRIALS SET TO TAKE STAGE: For the first time in the social media era, companies like Meta, Snap, TikTok, and YouTube are being made to answer for their deliberately addictive and dangerous product designs. The cases will argue that features like infinite scroll, auto video play, and algorithmic recommendations have led to compulsive social media use and caused depression, eating disorders, and self-harm. The consolidated court dates span thousands of plaintiffs who have each suffered harm because of the business choices made by people like Meta's Mark Zuckerberg and Adam Mosseri.
We’ve known for years that Big Tech’s addictive products are dangerous for kids’ mental health. The plaintiffs allege that Big Tech executives’ own research proved it — one Meta researcher said, “[Instagram] is a drug, we’re basically pushers” (!). And in a shocker to absolutely no one, those Big Tech CEOs willfully put innocent young people in harm's way, buried their own findings, and lied to the American people (and Congress) – all to create lifelong addicts to their products.
Want to get up to speed? Our fact sheet outlines critical details about the trials, including key witnesses, legal arguments, court schedules, and docket access.
FOR JOURNALISTS: SPACE IS EXTREMELY LIMITED. Please contact the court in advance to register and consider having your legal teams request the court provide media access to daily proceedings. More information can be found here.
💰 HOW TO MAKE BIG TECH PAY: AI isn’t just swallowing up the internet — it’s devouring energy as fast as we can produce it, and the next generation of AI data centers will demand even more electricity than cities the size of New York. Who is paying for all that? Right now, the answer is “us,” and we have Big Tech giants like Google, Meta, Amazon, and OpenAI to thank for higher energy bills.
The good news? It doesn’t have to be this way. A new report from the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator outlines nine ways that federal and state policymakers can confront the energy crisis created by Big Tech’s insatiable appetite for computing power. The most important step? Making sure Big Tech pays for the power they use — not the public. That means no special deals, no taxpayer-funded subsidies, and no utility rate hikes to fund corporate growth.The report calls for clear, enforceable regulations to stop utility companies from passing AI-driven costs onto everyday consumers. It recommends:
- banning backroom ratepayer cost-sharing agreements, which shift costs to ordinary energy customers
- forcing tech companies to pay for infrastructure upgrades they require
- taking a close look at tax incentives, which are often justified by economic gains that never actually materialize
If utilities and regulators don’t step in, we’re headed for a future where corporate AI development makes energy unaffordable for millions, accelerates climate emissions, and threatens the long-term stability of the grid — all to enrich a few billionaires and their shareholders. That’s wrong. The costs of Big Tech’s AI expansion shouldn’t be dumped on the backs of the rest of us.📘 Read the full report: Nine Ways to Address the Energy Impacts of AI Data Centers
Aspen Institute Opens Nominations for Technology Leaders Initiative: From today through March 1st, the Aspen Institute's Technology Leaders Initiative, which is a two-year fellowship experience designed for senior technology leaders ready to reflect more deeply on the responsibilities that come with shaping this new digital landscape. You can find more details here.
⚾⚾⚾ THREE STRIKES: GROK PROPELS DEFIANCE ACT PAST SENATE: Strike 1: In early 2025, Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok and its host platform X were caught spewing racist, conspiracist propaganda to completely unrelated queries.
Strike 2: Last summer, Grok became the target of a firestorm of criticism after Grok parroted antisemitic tropes and praised Adolf Hitler.
Strike 3: Grok generated sexually explicit and non‑consensual images of women and kids engaged in sexual activity.
The response? Swift.
Last Tuesday, the Senate UNANIMOUSLY passed the DEFIANCE ACT (S.1837), which would let victims sue the individuals who created the images for civil damages. The bill is designed to build on the Take It Down Act, a law passed last year that criminalizes the distribution of nonconsensual intimate images and requires social media platforms to promptly remove them. Now, all that stands in the way of heading to the President's desk is the Republican-led House of Representatives.
Not to be outdone by Congress, California Attorney General Rob Bonta called the wave of disgusting content an “avalanche” and sent a cease-and-desist letter to X, demanding that Grok’s dangerous functionality be suspended, and a coalition of nearly thirty organizations (led by UltraViolet and joined by The Tech Oversight Project) sent letters to Google and Apple to remove X and Grok from their respective app stores for violating their publicly-stated terms of service.
Rather than fixing the problem, Elon Musk and company decided to double down on their pedophilic product by putting it behind a paywall instead. Not only does that not fix the problem, it's arguably worse. Now, X has turned sexual abuse and pedophilia into a premium service. After a unanimous vote in the Senate, the onus is on Speaker Johnson, Leader Scalise, and the Republican-led House of Representatives to pass the DEFIANCE Act.
Julia Shapero
Jennifer A Dlouhy
Jeremy Kahn
Gilad Edelman
Ryan Whitwam
Tom Perkins