Meta’s blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

Business | Social reckoning

Meta’s blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

But investors aren’t panicking yet

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Photograph: AFP

Aug 18th 2026|LOS ANGELES|4 min read

IN EARLY October a sequel to “The Social Network”, a film about Mark Zuckerberg’s founding of Facebook, is scheduled for release. Called “The Social Reckoning”, it will dramatise the role of whistle-blowers in the early 2020s who alleged that the social-media giant hid that its products were harmful. Those who cannot wait until then can follow a no less vivid drama involving Facebook, Instagram and their parent company, Meta, in a federal courtroom in Oakland, California. Oral arguments started on August 18th. Reckoning or not, the trial could be a blockbuster.

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