たけぞうのFX日記　☆FXでサラリーマンの年収は超せるのか☆

At the beating heart of Moscow, directly opposite the Kremlin on the eastern side of Red Square, you'll find Russia's most famous shopping mall.

Known as GUM, the ornate neo-classical building sits a stone's throw from St Basil's cathedral and the mausoleum of Lenin, the man who attempted to overthrow capitalism. 

Yet it has, in recent years, been filled with 'landmark' stores owned by luxury brands anxious to soak up the cash being liberally sprayed around by the post-Soviet oligarch class.

When they aren't applauding the tanks that occasionally rumble over nearby cobblestones, cronies of Vladimir flock to this marble-floored emporium, arm-in-arm with their high-maintenance wives, mistresses and girlfriends to spend ill-gotten roubles on handbags, Tiffany jewellery and Hugo Boss suits.

At least they did. In late February last year, everything changed. That was when their autocratic President decided to invade Ukraine, EVDen EVe NAKliyat turning Russia into a global pariah overnight.

As Putin's soldiers raped and murdered their way across the country, Western consumer brands began responding to public revulsion by literally shutting up shop. 

Within weeks, the UK, EU and many Western countries had imposed sanctions to prevent fresh supplies of luxury goods from reaching Russia.

Today, the GUM centre's Chanel, Tiffany and Hugo Boss outlets have closed their doors. 

You can no longer shop for shoes by Jimmy Choo or John Lobb, or handbags from the houses of Prada, Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Hermes. 

As they boarded up their boutiques and cancelled shipments of fresh stock to Russia, these famous purveyors of luxury goods simultaneously issued earnest PR statements expressing their desire to, as the saying goes, 'stand with Ukraine'.

But today, almost a year after Putin's tanks rolled over the border, shopaholics of the Russian elite aren't entirely out of luck.

For beneath the building's glass-domed roof, the Mail this week made a scandalous discovery: outposts of not one, but two famous British luxury brands are very much still open for business.

One is Paul Smith, EVDEN eVe NAKliYAt the Nottingham-based purveyor of stripy scarves and modish menswear that its eponymous multi-millionaire founder and owner likes to describe as 'classic with a twist'.

While their compatriots fire missiles into Kyiv's schools and apartment blocks, I can reveal Russians are still rattling the tills at the local Paul Smith boutique from 10am to 10pm, seven days a week, happy to fork out 16,900 roubles (£197) for one of the brand's signature colourful ties and much else.

The shelves remain well-stocked with many of the very latest Paul Smith products.

Indeed, on Wednesday an assistant attempted to flog our reporter an 'embossed leather folio' — a sort of briefcase — from the firm's 'new season' range, which only went on sale in the UK a few weeks back. Its price?A trifling 90,000 roubles, or £1,050.

Scandalously, the man whose firm made (and is therefore profiting from) this expensive trinket is not just a Knight of the Realm.

For in addition to being honoured by Tony Blair in the heyday of Cool Britannia — having served on New Labour's Creative Industries Task Force — Sir Paul Smith, 76, was last year invited to Buckingham Palace so that Prince William could elevate him to membership of the Order of Companions of Honour, one of the highest gongs available to anyone in the creative industry.

The Moral Ratings Agency, a lobby group which monitors Western firms operating in Russia, describes his firm's presence there as a 'disgrace', telling the Mail Sir Paul ought to get his brand out of Russia or be stripped of his titles.

A few doors down from Paul Smith's red-fronted shop — and also open for business — you'll find GUM's branch of Agent Provocateur, the upscale English underwear brand popularised by Kate Moss in the 1990s. It is also stocking designs from the new season.

One of no fewer than ten Russian Agent Provocateur boutiques that are still open — all of which remain advertised on its British website — we found it selling crystal-embossed leather bondage whips for EvDEn eVe naKLiYat 73,000 roubles (£850), bejewelled pink brassieres for 110,000 roubles (£,1280) and thongs for up to 85,000 roubles (£990) each.

An assistant told us the last shipment of new stock arrived shortly before Christmas and a new one is due in March — just in time for International Women's Day.

Again, it's hard to see how this British luxury goods firm squares its presence in Moscow with the supposed values listed on its website. 

Shamelessly, given Russia's ongoing use of rape as a weapon of war, Agent Provocateur claims to be dedicated to promoting 'fearless femininity' and is 'adhering to the highest standard of ethics'.

The firm's current owner, high street tycoon Mike Ashley is, EVDeN Eve NAKliyaT however, no stranger to cutting lucrative business deals in questionable dictatorships. For those who have any inquiries concerning where in addition to the best way to use EvdEn EvE nAkLiYaT, you are able to e mail us in our web-site.  

His moral compass was seemingly untroubled by his recent sale — for more than twice what he had paid — of football club Newcastle United to a Saudi Arabia-backed consortium.

Once they have stocked up on clothes and lingerie, every good oligarch needs a bespoke Rolls-Royce to whisk them from central Moscow to their gaudy dacha.

Which takes us to the British luxury car firm's main Russian showroom, on the ground floor of an upscale hotel just across the Moskva river, roughly two miles west of Red Square.

Rolls-Royce insists it no longer sells new cars in Russia, claiming in a holier-than-thou media announcement that: 'We stand for the peaceful co-existence of all cultures all over the world, in all times and at all locations.'

Laura Whitmore steps out after receiving an ASA ban

Kanye West's Donda Academy announced it would be reopening its doors on Thursday, just hours after the principal said the school would shutter for the remainder of the 2022-23 school year.

Parents at the exclusive Christian school received an email near midnight on Wednesday explaining that the school would be 'returning with a vengeance,' the following morning, a hard U-turn from a message they received just hours earlier from school administrators.

On Wednesday, Academy Principal Jason Angell sent an email to parents explaining that West, 45, had decided to close the school 'effective immediately,' with classes being cancelled as of Thursday.

But an internal email from 'Parents of Donda' obtained by told a much different story.

'Join us tomorrow morning in worship for the return of Donda Academy,' the email read.With the help of our parents and community, we are back and returning with a vengeance!'

'The children of Donda are going to change the world,' the message added.' Apologies for the late email! See you bright and early!'

It is unclear whether the school itself is reopening in an official capacity, or whether parents and staff are taking it upon themselves to continue educating their children.  

The bizarre twist comes as  around his anti-semitic behavior, which has included repeated claims of 'Jewish people' in the media conspiring against him, and planned parenthood controlling black populations through genocidal abortions. 

On Thursday the rapper returned to Instagram after being banned earlier this month, posting that he 'lost 2 billion dollars in one day' in an apparent reference to the flock of brands which have dropped him in the wake of his bigoted behavior.

This week Adidas dropped his Yeezy shoe line - a deal which was worth $1.5billion - with Gap, Footlocker, TJ Maxx, and Balenciaga all following suit and EvDen EVE Nakliyat cutting ties with the rapper.

Donda Academy's closure and sudden reopening come just two months after it started up in August.The school did not respond to DailyMail.com requests for comment. 

The exclusive pre-K through 12 school - named after West's mother, Donda - is located in a secret location in the Simi Valley just north of Los Angeles, and charges $15,000 per student.About half the student body receives financial aid and scholarships, according to The Post.

The school enrolls about 100 students and employees 16 teachers.  Parents sign a non-disclosure agreement to keep the school's location secret and to say nothing about it.

There are reportedly a number of celebrities' children in attendance - including R&B singer Keyshia Cole's son Daniel - and the school is well known for its high-powered basketball team.Rising star Robert Dillingham, 17, plays for the school, and NBA players like Celtics player Jaylen Brown have made appearances at the school. 

Students wear all black Balenciaga uniforms and Yeezy shoes designed by West himself.

Despite running the school, West's children do not attend, and he have clashed with Kim Kardashian on the matter.

West previously complained on social media that Kim wouldn't agree to send their four children for '[two] days at one school, three days at another.' 

As of September the school had not yet been accredited, according to the , which means colleges might not accept diplomas from the school.

The Donda Academy website states that the school's goal is 'to provide the youth with the passion, purpose and spiritual foundations they need to thrive in tomorrow's world.'

The curriculum has a strong focus on Christianity, the arts, and math and science.Students can take parkour as a physical activity, and the school has a strong high school basketball program. 

Angell emailed parents on Wednesday announcing the school's closure for the remainder of the school year.

'At the discretion of our founder, Donda Academy will close for the remainder of the 2022-2023 school year effective immediately, he wrote.

'There is no school tomorrow [Thursday].'

Angell noted that the school's leadership would help parents and students transition into their new school, and added that the Donda would begin 'afresh' in September 2023. 

On Wednesday the school's basketball team was booted from the The Scholastic Play-By-Play Classics tournament, saying West's 'words and actions violate our values as a company and a country, and what we seek to ensure at all of our events - a spirit of diversity, sportsmanship, inclusion, equity and mutual respect.'

Representatives for the tournament expressed their remorse that West's words cost his students the experience of participating in the coveted high school basketball tournament. 

'While we are firm in our reasoning for this decision, it does not diminish our heartache and regret for Donda's hardworking athletes who will lose out the most as a result of Kanye's actions,' the school added. 'Unfortunately, we cannot in good conscience host an organization founded and directed by Mr.West at our events. If you cherished this article and you would like to obtain more info pertaining to EVDEn evE NakliYat nicely visit the web page. '

Yesterday, the rapper was embarrassingly escorted out of Skechers headquarters after showing up unannounced to pitch his Yeezy brand a day after being dropped by Adidas and having his songs banned by Peloton.

Ye was taken out by two 'executives' according to a statement released by the company Wednesday afternoon. 

 said in a statement: 'Considering Ye was engaged in unauthorized filming, two Skechers executives escorted him and his party from the building after a brief conversation. Skechers is not considering and has no intention of working with West.

'We condemn his recent divisive remarks and do not tolerate anti-Semitism or any other form of hate speech.The Company would like to again stress that West showed up unannounced and uninvited to Skechers corporate offices.' 

West may have faced additional opposition if he had gotten a preapproved sit-down meeestimates comes from real estate, cash, his music catalog, and a 5 percent stake in ex-wife Kim Kardashian's shapewear firm, Skims.

But as corporations around the world break off deals with Ye, music streaming service said it would not remove the rapper's music unless his label requested it.

Recent anti-Semitic remarks made by the rapper are 'just awful comments,' and would have warranted removal from Spotify for violating its policies if they had been on a podcast or recording, Spotify chief Daniel Ek said.

However, music from the artist now known as Ye does not violate anti-hate policies, and any anti-Semitic comments he has made cannot be found on the music streaming platform.

'It's really just his music, and his music doesn't violate our policy,' said Ek, adding, 'It's up to his label, if they want to take action or not.'

Universal Music's Def Jam label, which owns the copyright to West's recordings from 2002 through 2016, and continued distributing his releases until last year, issued a statement condemning Ye's remarks, saying: 'There is no place for anti-Semitism in our society'.But the label has not asked for the removal of Ye's recordings, many of which are critically acclaimed works.

Safety improved on world's first liquid hydrogen carrier after…

As concern grows over social media, U.S.lawsuits stack up

*

Surge in mental health problems worst among girls

*

Lawyers zone in on algorithm designs, whistleblower leaks

*

Others see platforms as scapegoat for society's woes

By Avi Asher-Schapiro

LOS ANGELES, Feb 8 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - At about the time her daughter reached the age of 12, American health executive Laurie saw her once confident, happy child turning into someone she barely recognized.At first, she thought a bad case of adolescent angst was to blame.

Initially, her daughter had trouble sleeping and grappled with episodes of self-loathing and anxiety, but by the time she was 14, she had started cutting herself and was having suicidal thoughts.

Without Laurie knowing, she had been sneaking away her confiscated smartphone and spending hours online at night, trawling through posts about self-harm and eating disorders on social media platforms.

"One day she said to me: 'Mom, I'm going to hurt myself badly if I don't get help,'" Laurie said as she described the mental health crises that have plagued her daughter for the last two years, disrupting her education and devastating the family's finances.

She asked to use only her first name in order to protect the identity of her daughter.

Paying for her daughter's care - therapists, a psychiatrist, and multiple residential treatment facilities across the country - has nearly bankrupted Laurie, who recently sold her house in California and moved to a cheaper home in another state.

In August, she filed a lawsuit on behalf of her daughter against the social media platforms she blames for EVden EvE NAkLiyaT the ordeal: Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok.

The case is one of dozens of similar U.S.lawsuits which argue that, when it comes to children, social media is a dangerous product - like a car with a faulty seat-belt - and that tech companies should be held to account and pay for the resulting harms.

"Before (she used) social media, there was no eating disorder, there was no mental illness, there was no isolation, there was no cutting, none of that," Laurie told the Thomson Reuters Foundation about her daughter, who is identified as C.W.in the suit.

Don Grant, a psychologist who specializes in treating children with mental health issues linked to digital devices, said Laurie's predicament is increasingly common.

"It's like every night, kids all over the country sneak out of their houses and go to play in the sewers under the city with no supervision. That's what being online can be like," he said.

"You think just because your kids are sitting in your living room they're safe - but they're not."

Facebook's parent company Meta Platforms Inc, Snap Inc, which owns Snapchat, and TikTok declined to comment on individual lawsuits, but said they prioritized children's safety online.

Meta executives, under criticism over internal data showing its Instagram app damaged the mental health of teenagers, have highlighted the positive impacts of social media, evdeN Eve nAKLiYaT EVden eVe NAKLiYaT NakliYat and their efforts to better protect young users.

ASBESTOS, TOBACCO, SOCIAL MEDIA?

Laurie is represented by the Social Media Victims Law Center, a firm co-founded by veteran trial lawyer Matt Bergman, who won hundreds of millions of dollars suing makers of the building material asbestos for concealing its linkage with cancer in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Bergman decided to turn his attention to social media after former Facebook executive Frances Haugen leaked thousands of internal company documents in 2021 that showed the company had some knowledge of the potential harm its products could cause.

"These companies make the asbestos industry look like a bunch of Boy Scouts," Bergman said.

Facebook has said the Haugen papers have been mischaracterized and taken out of context, and that Wall Street Journal articles based on them "conferred egregiously false motives to Facebook's leadership and employees".

Bergman's firm has signed up more than 1,200 clients including Laurie over the past year, taking out television ads asking families who worry about their children's social media use to get in touch on a toll-free hotline.

In addition to more than 70 cases involving child suicide, the firm has collected over 600 cases linked to eating disorders.Dozens more accuse social media firms of failing to prevent sex trafficking on their platforms, or stem from accidental deaths after children attempted viral stunts allowed to spread online.

In late 2022, 80 similar federal suits from 35 different jurisdictions were consolidated together and are now being considered by the U.S.District Court for the Northern District of California.

Laurie's suit is part of a similar bundle of suits filed in California state courts.

HIDING BEHIND SECTION 230

None of these cases - or any of those filed by Bergman - have yet to be heard by a jury, and it is not clear if they ever will.

First, he has to get past Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a provision that provides technology companies some legal immunity for content published on their platform by third parties.

Courts routinely cite the provision when they dismiss lawsuits against social media firms, which prevents the cases from moving on to trial.

In October, for example, a court in Pennsylvania blocked a lawsuit against TikTok brought on behalf of a child who died after suffocating themselves doing a so-called blackout challenge that was widely shared on the video-sharing site.

When it was enacted in the 1990s, Section 230 was intended to shield the nascent tech industry from being crushed under waves of lawsuits, providing space for companies to experiment with platforms that encouraged user-generated content.

Laura Marquez-Garrett, a lawyer with the Social Media Victims Law Center who is taking the lead on Laurie's case, said she believed her cases could be won if a court agreed to hear them.

"The moment we get to litigate ... and move forward, it's game over," she said.

Bergman and Marquez-Garrett are part of growing cohort of lawyers who think Section 230 is no longer tenable, as political pressure builds on the issue.

President Joe Biden has voiced support for "revoking" Section 230, and politicians in both parties have proposed legislation that would scrap or tweak the provision. But so far, no reform packages have gained traction, shifting the focus of reform efforts to litigation.

"We aren't talking about small companies experimenting with new technology; we're talking about huge companies who have built harmful products," Bergman said.

Bergman and his team say the harm to their clients is not primarily about harmful speech that just so happened to be posted online, but that it can directly be attributed to design decisions made by the tech companies.

His lawsuits focus on the building of algorithms that maximize the amount of time children spend online and push them towards harmful content; the way friend recommendation features can introduce children to predatory adults - as well as the lax controls for parents who want to restrict access.

"These lawsuits are about specific design decisions social media platforms have made to maximize profit over safety," Bergman said.

Asked by the Thomson Reuters Foundation to comment on the company's product designs, Meta sent an emailed statement from its global head of safety, Antigone Davis, who said the company takes children's safety seriously.

"We want teens to be safe online. We've developed more than 30 tools to support teens and families, including supervision tools that let parents limit the amount of time their teens spend on Instagram, and age verification technology that helps teens have age-appropriate experiences," the statement read.

A Snap spokesperson did not comment directly on the pending litigation, adding in a statement that "nothing is more important to us than the wellbeing of our community."

"We curate content from known creators and publishers and use human moderation to review user generated content before it can reach a large audience, which greatly reduces the spread and discovery of harmful content," the statement added.

'FOR PARENTS EVERYWHERE'

Laurie's lawsuit - which was filed in late August in the Superior Court of Los Angeles - alleges that TikTok, Meta and Snap, are "contributing to the burgeoning mental health crisis perpetrated upon the children and teenagers of the United States."

"I'm doing this for parents everywhere," she said.

A sharp increase in depression and suicide among U.S.teenagers coincided with a surge in social media use about a decade ago, though a slew of research has reached mixed conclusions about a possible link.

Bergman is not the first lawyer to try to bring a tech firm to court for building an allegedly harmful product.

Carrie Goldberg, a New York-based lawyer, helped to popularize the notion that social media software is essentially like any other consumer product - and that harms it causes in the real world should open up manufacturers to lawsuits.

In 2017, she sued the dating app Grindr on behalf of Matthew Herrick, a man who was stalked and threatened online by an ex-boyfriend, but could not get Grindr to block his harasser.

Goldberg argued that Grindr's decision to make it difficult to kick harassers off the app should open the company up to some liability as designers of the product, but the court disagreed - ruling that Grindr merely facilitated communications, and was therefore protected under Section 230.

"I couldn't get in front of a jury," Goldberg recalled, saying that if such cases were allowed to proceed to trial, they would likely succeed.

A lot has changed in the last five years, she said: the public has become less trusting of social media companies and courts have started to entertain the notion that lawyers should be able to sue tech platforms in the same way as providers of other consumer products or services.

In 2021, the 9th Circuit Court in California ruled that Snap could potentially be held liable for the deaths of two boys who died in a high-speed car accident that took place while they were using a Snapchat filter that their families say encouraged reckless driving.

In October, the U.S.Supreme Court decided to hear a case against Google that accuses its YouTube video platform of materially supporting terrorism due to the algorithmic recommendation of videos by the Islamic State militant group.

Legal experts said that case could set an important precedent for how Section 230 applies to the content recommendations that platforms' algorithms make to users - including those made to children such as Laurie's daughter.

"The pendulum has really swung," Goldberg said."People no longer trust these products are operating in the public good, and the courts are waking up."

Outside the United States, the balance has shifted still further, and is beginning to be reflected both in consumer lawsuits and regulation.

In September, a British government inquest faulted social media exposure for the suicide of a 14-year-old girl, and lawmakers are poised to implement stringent rules for age verification for social media firms.

But aside from a recent bill in California that mandates "age appropriate design" decisions, efforts in the United States to pass new laws governing digital platforms have largely faltered.

Trial lawyers like Bergman say that leaves the issue in their hands.

CONSENT AND CONTROL

Laurie's daughter got her first cellphone in the sixth grade, when she started taking the bus to school alone.When her mental health began to deteriorate soon after, her mother did not initially make a connection.

"In many ways I was a helicopter parent," Laurie said. "I did everything right - I put the phone in the cupboard at night, we spoke about the appropriate use of technology around the dinner table."

Now, Laurie knows her daughter had secretly opened multiple social media accounts in an attempt to evade her mother's vigilance, spending hours connected at night in her bedroom.

Laurie soon realized her daughter was wearing long-sleeved shirts to cover up cutting scars on her arms.

"When I asked her about it, she said, "Mom, there are videos showing you how to do it on TikTok, and Snapchat - they show you what tools to use."

TikTok and Snap said harmful content is not allowed on their platforms, and they take steps to remove it.

With her self-esteem plummeting, Laurie's daughter was introduced to older users on Snapchat and Instagram who sought to groom and sexually exploit her - including requesting sexually explicit images from her, according to her lawyers.

Although Laurie wanted to keep her daughter offline, social media platforms designed their products "to evade parental consent and control," her lawsuit alleges.

A Meta spokesperson pointed to a number of recent initiatives to give parents control over their children's online activity, including a "Family Center," introduced in 2022, which allows parents to monitor and limit time spent on Instagram.

Laurie's daughter surreptitiously opened five Instagram, six Snapchat and three TikTok accounts, according to her lawsuit, many before she turned 13 - the age when social media firms can allow minors to open accounts.

"There was no way for me to contact all these companies and say, 'don't let my daughter log in,'" Laurie said.

Though Laurie wanted to further restrict her daughter's social media access, she was concerned that - since all her classmates were communicating on the apps - her daughter would feel socially excluded without them.

ENDLESS SCROLLING

Laurie's daughter is just one data point in a trend that psychologists have been trying to make sense of over the last decade.

Between the years of 2012 and 2015, U.S. teenagers reporting symptoms of depression increased by 21% - the number was double for girls, said Jean Twenge, an American psychologist and researcher studying mental health trends.

Three times as many 12- to 14-year-old girls killed themselves in 2015 as in 2007, Twenge said.

Until about 10 years ago, cases involving depression, self-harm and anxiety had been stable for decades, said Grant, the psychologist.

"Then we see this big spike around 2012 - what happened in 2011?The advent of Snapchat and Instagram," he said.

One driver of this trend, researchers say, is social comparison - the way that products including Instagram and TikTok are engineered to push users to constantly compare themselves to their peers in a way that can torpedo self-esteem.

"She'd say "Mom, I'm ugly, I'm fat"," Laurie recalled of her daughter. "Keep in mind: she's 98 pounds (44 kg), and 5 foot 5 (165 cm)."

"So I'd ask her, 'why do you think this?' And she'd say, 'because I posted a photo and only four people liked it'. Here's more information about EVdEN EvE nAkLiyAT review the internet site. "

Grant said he sees children hooked by very specific design choices that social media companies have made.

"Just think about endless scrolling - that's based on the motion of slot machines - addictive gambling," said Grant, who spent years treating adult addiction before turning his focus to children's technology use.

Still, mental health experts are divided on the interplay between children's mental health and social media use.

"Social media is often a scapegoat," said Yalda Uhls, a professor of developmental psychology at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).

"It's easier to blame (it) than the systematic issues in our society - there's inequality, racism, climate change, and there's parenting decisions too."

While some children may attribute a mental health challenge to social media, others say the opposite. Polling by Pew in November showed that less than 10% of teens said social media was having a "mostly negative" impact on their lives.

There are still big gaps in research into concepts such as social media addiction and digital harm to children, said Jennifer King, a research fellow at the Stanford University Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence.

"But the internal research - the Frances Haugen documents - are damning," she said. "And of course, it was shark bait for trial lawyers."

INHERENTLY DANGEROUS?

Toney Roberts was watching CNN at 2 a.m. on a winter's evening in early 2022, when he saw an advertisement he never expected to see.

A woman on screen invited parents to call a 1-800 number if they had a "child (who) suffered a mental health crisis, eating disorder, attempted or completed suicide or was sexually exploited through social media."

"I thought, wait, this is what happened to our daughter," he recalled.

It had been more than a year since he found his 14-year-old daughter Englyn hanging in her room. She eventually died from her injuries.

Roberts later discovered that his daughter had viewed a video depicting the specific suicide method on Instagram, and that in the months leading up to her death she had been sucked into an online world of self-harm content, and abuse.

He began to comb through his daughter's phone, creating a dossier of her mental health spiral, which he attributed to her use of Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat.

To his distress, he found the video that may have played a part in her death was still circulating on Instagram for months after she died.

Meta declined to comment on the Roberts case, but said in an emailed statement that the company does not "allow content that promotes suicide, self-harm or eating disorders."

After Roberts called the 1-800 number, Bergman and Marquez-Garrett flew to Louisiana to meet the family, and last July, he and his wife Brandy sued the three social media companies.

"I didn't want my daughter to be a statistic," Roberts said, adding that the user who created the video he thinks inspired his daughter's suicide still has an active Instagram account.

TikTok and Snapchat also declined to comment on the case.

Bergman often compares his cases against social media platforms to the avalanche of lawsuits that targeted tobacco companies in the 1950s onwards: lawyers only began winning cases after leaked documents showed advance knowledge of cancer-causing chemicals.

In Laurie's case, for example, the lawsuit cites documents made public by Haugen showing an internal Facebook conversation about how 70% of the reported "adult/minor exploitation" on the platform could be traced back to recommendations made through the "People You May Know" feature.

Another employee suggests in the same message board that the tool should be disabled for children.

Meta did not directly respond to a request for comment on the document.

Since the so-called Facebook Papers were first published in September 2021, Meta has made a number of changes, including restricting the ability of children to message adults who Instagram flags as "suspicious."

But at the time Laurie's daughter was using social media, none of the platforms had meaningful restrictions on the ability of adults to message children, her lawyers say, a design choice they argue should open the companies up to legal liability.

Bergman said facts like this illustrate social media litigation should become the next "Big Tobacco."

Some other lawyers are not convinced by the parallel, however.

"For every person that gets harmed or hurt in real ways, I suspect there are literally millions who have no problems at all, and are having a great time on the platform," said Jason Schultz, director of New York University's Tech Law and Policy Clinic.

"Courts are going to have to ask: is this really an inherently dangerous thing?"

DESIGN DECISIONS

King, for her part, agrees that design choices made by the platforms are problematic.

"There's growing evidence that the companies made design decisions that were so skewed toward promoting engagement, that they can lead users to very harmful places," she said.

John Villasenor, the co-director of the UCLA Institute for Technology, Law, and Policy, said it could be hard to distinguish between a well-designed algorithm and one that might under some circumstances promote addictive behaviors.

"It's not unreasonable for platforms to build digital products that encourage more engagement," he said.

"And if someone is prone to addiction, and can't stop using it - is that always the platform's fault?"

In late 2022, Laurie's daughter returned home after spending a chunk of her high school years in residential treatment centers.

Each week, she sits down with her mother so they can go through everything she has posted on Instagram - the only social media platform Laurie decided to let her keep using, so she could still connect with her friends.

Today, she is doing much better, Laurie said."I feel like I have my daughter back."

Originally published at: website (Reporting by Avi Asher-Schapiro @AASchapiro; Editing by Helen Popper. The Thomson Reuters Foundation is the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters. Visit website

A woman has slammed the 'horrendous' state of her house after spending more than £50,000 on building work only for it to abruptly stop leaving her with a large repair bill and 'no kitchen.'

IT worker Lisa Morris, 50, says she hired a company called Eva-Lution to renovate her Llanharan home but the work suddenly stopped last November.

She says she paid the builders £52,900 for work including a kitchen extension - but she claims her kitchen has been left with exposed wires, bare brick walls and no ceiling.

Now Ms Morris, claims her property has 'no kitchen, having ripped the previous kitchen out' and that she is 'emotionally and physically exhausted' and living on 'microwave and evDen eVe NAKliYaT air fryer meals.'

Ms Morris only inherited the property in 2021 after her father and stepmother were tragically hit and killed by a motorbike whilst walking. 

She said: 'What makes it worse is that it's their house.I was renovating it with money my dad had gifted me shortly before he passed away. 

'The house was all I had left of them. I'm emotionally and physically exhausted - this has consumed my life for months. 

'I took time off work but I've had to go back because I can't afford not to work, with the situation I'm in.'

Eva-Lution, whose director is 27-year-old Chloe Eva, had eight employees in 2022, according to Companies House. 

Ms Eva denied the work on Ms Morris' home was of a poor standard and claimed it was halted due to a 'cash flow issue'. 

She said Ms Morris rejected the offer of a £24,544 refund for parts of the job left unfinished.

Ms Morris, who previously lived in rented accommodation, had hoped the renovation would be complete by the time she moved into the house. 

She heard about Eva-Lution in June last year through a recommendation and evdEN Eve NakLiyat paid a £3,500 deposit the following month.

As work progressed over the following weeks, Ms Morris transferred more money for materials. 

In early September she went to Howdens with a member of Eva-Lution's team and chose a kitchen. 

She transferred £11,000 to Eva-Lution but claims she only later learned that Howdens had never received payment for the kitchen. 

According to Ms Eva, her company had ordered the kitchen but had not paid Howdens.

An Eva-Lution worker told Ms Morris by text that all the upstairs, living room and front-of-house work would be done by October 16, adding: 'Hopefully we will have the extension built with just the inside left to do.' 

Because of this she arranged the end of her tenancy for October 16 but she claims it eventually became 'apparent that the house wouldn't be liveable' by that date, so she extended her lease by a month.

Ms Morris claims she moved in on November 5 with no kitchen, no cloakroom, an unfinished hallway and a garden 'like a building site'. 

She added: 'I went on holiday on November 12 and was told that the frame of the extension would be up by the time I got home.Again this did not materialise.'

On November 28 the company told Ms Morris there was a cash flow issue but a £250,000 investment would be in its accounts by December 2. 

'I was also told at this point that they didn't even have enough money to pay for the cement, so I gave them £400 to get the necessary materials so the footings could be completed,' she added.

Eva-Lution workers have not attended Ms Morris' home since the end of November when concrete was laid for footings. 

She alleges that the extension's timber frame never arrived and that another builder has since told her the footings were laid incorrectly and will have to be removed. 

Ms Eva disputes this and claims the footings were laid after consultation with a structural engineer. 

She added: 'I do not believe the work carried out was to a poor standard, and during the works no issue or complaint was raised about the quality or standard of work.'

Ms Morris said the job was meant to cover a fully fitted kitchen with appliances.'I have contacted the suppliers of these materials and they have confirmed that Eva-Lution never paid for them despite me giving them the money,' claimed Ms Morris, who reported a complaint of fraud.

Responding to the claim of fraud, Ms Eva said staff stopped working on Ms Morris' property due to a cash flow issue after her own company was a 'victim of fraudulent activity and non-payment of invoices' by another business. 

Asked about the investment, she claimed this was set to be completed at the beginning of January but 'when the funds were due to be transferred, there was an issue due to the fraud case that Ms Morris has put on the business bank account'.

'By this time, other accounts and clients then had further frustrations with needing to wait for works to re-commence, and the investor pulled out due to there being so many issues,' said Ms Eva. If you cherished this article along with you would want to acquire more information regarding EVdEn Eve nAKliyAt generously check out our own page.  

'If the fraud case was not on the account, the funds would have gone through and we could be in a position to resolve any company conflicts.'

She added that the kitchen was ordered through Howdens but Eva-Lution was waiting for the investment to come through before the kitchen could be obtained.Eva-Lution offered to pay Ms Morris £24,544, which Ms Eva described as a 'fair refund' due to work already completed. 

'This included the purchase price of the kitchen which, due to the issue and us not being able to obtain the investment funds, was not settled,' said Ms Eva.

Ms Eva claimed funds had never been taken from clients to cover business overheads but she said Eva-Lution was hit by the alleged fraud of another company.

She said:  'Due to the situation we found ourselves in...direct debits and standing orders of Eva-Lution were still being taken from our account which ate into funds we had received from clients. 

'This is not how we have run the company through the duration. However, due to the circumstance/situation this is what happened.Again, this is why Ms Morris was offered the settlement figure, to cover this cost.'

Ms Morris, who claims her home needs around £40,000 worth of repairs, has declined the offer of £24,544 and sent a letter before action to Eva-Lution, which has begun the process of liquidation.

'It was never our intention for the company to go into liquidation,' said Ms Eva, but she confirmed there have been other threats of legal action and described liquidation as 'our safest option as a company'.

Ms Morris has been relying on a microwave and air fryer to cook since moving in. 'When I moved in, I was only expecting to live like this for a week,' she said, adding that upcoming repair costs will leave her struggling financially.

Aside from the kitchen, Ms Morris claims a downstairs toilet and vanity unit are among the items paid for but never installed. 

Ms Eva defended her company's work which she says included new internal doors, plastering, painting, electrical works in the living room, eVDen eVE NAkLiyAt a new upstairs bathroom, new radiators, rubbish removal, new light fittings, fitting of blinds supplied by Ms Morris, wardrobe work, re-routing of drainage and plumbing, and the 'beginning of the extension'.

Ms Eva added: 'If there was an issue with the quality it should have been brought to our attention before now. 

'Ms Morris was offered for the staff to return to the property before Christmas, which she denied and advised she was taking legal action and we were not to return.'