Big Tech: Guilty!
Big Tech: Guilty!
Good morning!
Guilty. Yesterday an L.A. jury found tech mammoths Meta and Google guilty of deliberately, strategically engineering their social media platforms to addict and hurt people.
The verdict is a face slap to an industry that has enjoyed virtually total immunity from consequences for its malevolent, destructive practices.
The plaintiff, a now 20-year-old woman identified as Kaley G.M., argued that compulsive use of Instagram, Facebook and YouTube as a child and teenager led to severe depression, body dysmorphia, self-harm and suicidal thoughts. Jurors agreed that core features of Facebook and YouTube (algorithmic recommendations, notifications, endless scrolling) substantially induced and stoked Kaley’s mental health crisis.
The jury awarded $3 million in compensatory damages and $3 million more in punitive damages. It’s small beer split between two companies together worth two thirds of a trillion dollars.
But as the first major social media addiction lawsuit to reach a jury verdict against Big Tech, this might force tech executives into a modicum of ethical behavior just to shield themselves from ongoing legal jeopardy. Indeed, thousands of similar suits are in courts across the U.S.
Families across the country and worldwide can tell stories like Kaley’s. Nine in 10 American teens use YouTube; 3 in 4 use it daily, Pew research says. Worldwide, YouTube and Instagram each have 2 to 3 billion users.
Who can even measure the individual and social harm wrought by these technologies devilishly engineered to interrupt lives, hook and hold eyeballs, command attention, feed obsession, manipulate human nature, and weaponize our weaknesses against us for profit?
One wee example, cited by Johann Hari in Stolen Focus: Infinite scroll. Conservative estimates say this feature makes a person spend 50 percent more time on a social media site. Every day, as a direct result of this gimmick, “the combined total of 200,000 more human lifetimes—every moment from birth to death—is now spent scrolling through a screen. These hours would have otherwise been spent on some other activity.” And that’s to say nothing of the effects of the vapid, unsettling, agitating, polarizing, outrageous, infuriating, desensitizing, algorithmically curated content being scrolled through.
I don’t expect huge changes within this titanic industry whose every financial incentive works against its users’ mental health. But we all need to pay attention to the truth this court victory exposes.
These companies hurt people—in countless ways far subtler, more pernicious and ubiquitous than such extreme cases as driving teenagers to suicide. No one, not even the plaintiff, can rely on a court verdict for protection, rescue or restoration. This is on us.
You and I need to take personal responsibility for ourselves and our families. We must guard against and minimize the reach and the effects of the TikToks, Snapchats and Xs on our thinking, our habits, our time, our interactions, our relationships and our lives.
Volkswagen to Convert Car Plant Into Weapons Factory?
Volkswagen has not made weapons since World War ii, when its factories built the V-1 flying bomb for Hitler’s Wehrmacht. That may be about to change.
The Financial Times reported yesterday that VW is in talks with Israeli defense company Rafael Advanced Defense Systems to convert its Osnabrück plant in Lower Saxony from automobile manufacturing to production of components for the Iron Dome missile defense system, which Israel developed and has shared with Germany. The German government is actively backing the deal.
- The Osnabrück plant employs 2,300 workers and faces closure after VW ends production of the T-Roc Cabriolet in 2027. The Iron Dome deal would save those jobs.
- Under the proposal, Osnabrück would manufacture Iron Dome launchers, heavy-duty transport trucks and electricity generators. The interceptor missiles would be produced at a separate Rafael facility to be built elsewhere in Germany.
- Production could begin within 12 to 18 months, with “comparatively little investment” required to retool the plant, the Financial Times reported.
- Rafael intends to sell these Iron Dome components to other European governments, positioning Germany as a hub for European air defense production.
In context: Germany, considered one of Israel’s most trusted allies in Europe, has pledged more than $577 billion in defense spending by 2030, with air defense listed as a top priority. It approved a constitutional amendment removing its debt brake to unlock unlimited defense spending.
- Chancellor Friedrich Merz has made military buildup the defining mission of his government. Rheinmetall, Germany’s largest arms manufacturer, is on a hiring and expansion spree.
Rafael works with Rheinmetall and Diehl Defense, another German firm, to manufacture antitank systems in Germany. The Volkswagen talks are the most visible sign yet of Germany edging toward a war economy.
- The last time German industry, including Volkswagen, suspended civilian production plans and retooled for war, its manufacturing output contributed directly to the deaths of 60 million people.
Prophetic implications: Herbert W. Armstrong spent decades warning that Germany would rebuild its military machine and lead a seventh and final resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire, prophesied in the Bible.
Ezekiel 23 describes the end-time nations of Israel turning to “lovers”—powerful allies—for protection, rather than God, only to have those lovers turn against them. Here, Judah (the modern nation of Israel) is handing its crown-jewel air defense technology to Germany, praising “the enduring strength of the Berlin-Jerusalem alliance.” Germany is absorbing that technology, incorporating it into its factories, and planning to sell it across Europe. Israel believes it is gaining a powerful protector. The Bible warns that this calculation will prove catastrophically wrong.
Former German Spymaster: ‘Iran War Is a Gift to Putin’
A long war between the United States and Iran would strengthen Russia, driving up energy prices that would swell its war budget and making peace in Ukraine less likely. This is according to Baron Arndt Freytag von Loringhoven, vice president of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service from 2007 to 2010 and later nato’s first assistant secretary general for intelligence and security. He told Ukrinform in an interview published March 23:
For Russia, high energy prices are a real gift for its war budget. The war surrounding Iran clearly plays into Putin’s hands.
According to the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air, Russia earned $8.9 billion from oil, gas and coal exports in the first two weeks of March, nearly 9 percent higher than the February average, as disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz contributed to higher global oil prices and boosted demand for Russian energy.
- Loringhoven descends from a Baltic-German noble family that was forced to leave its ancestral estates in Estonia after the country proclaimed independence from the Russian Empire in 1918 and confiscated German-owned land titles and assets.
- His father, Lt. Gen. Bernd Freytag von Loringhoven, commanded a tank battalion that was encircled at the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942–43 (he was evacuated by air before the Germans surrendered).
- He later served as a staff officer in the Wehrmacht, preparing military intelligence reports and situation maps for Adolf Hitler in the Führerbunker during the final weeks of the war in 1945.
Today, the younger Baron Loringhoven warns that Russia is attempting to regain some of its waning influence in Europe through hybrid tactics, including election interference, cyberattacks, and propaganda. As the son of a Wehrmacht officer who fought at Stalingrad, a battle partly motivated by the drive to secure oil resources, he is acutely aware of Germany’s need for diversified and secure energy sources. This is why he is concerned about long-term disruptions to the Strait of Hormuz.
“Germany has virtually no oil and is waiting for an opportunity to take control of the Middle East,” Gerald Flurry writes in Germany and the Holy Roman Empire. “It has planned this for years. The need for oil was the trigger for Japan to attack Pearl Harbor and launch World War II in the Pacific. That same trigger could ignite the clash between the king of the north and the king of the south.”
Baron Loringhoven certainly understands this need for oil. So although he currently advises against war in Iran, expect Germany’s military establishment to deal with the Iranian threat decisively. For more information, read “How Germany Plans to Win World War III.”
IN OTHER NEWS
Russia is arming Iran: Russia has increased military aid and intelligence sharing with Iran, strengthening the regime’s ability to target and attack American and Israeli forces, the Telegraph reported Thursday. Russia has supplied Iran with upgraded components for Shahed drones designed to improve their navigation, communication and lethality, with greater resilience against jamming, control through local telecommunications networks enabling operators to alter strike paths in the final phase, and the capability of striking with thermobaric and incendiary munitions. Drawing on its extensive use of Shaheds in Ukraine, Russia has also advised Iran on optimal flight profiles and strike mass. The report also confirms earlier intelligence showing that Russia is providing satellite imagery to Iran to enable precision targeting of high-value U.S. and Israeli assets in the region. This will increase Iran’s capacity to absorb prolonged strikes while exerting disproportionate force beyond U.S. and Israeli expectations and potentially beyond the limits of public tolerance. The Trumpet maintains that, whether due to Russian help or a broader array of factors, the current war will not neutralize the Iranian threat.
Reports: Israel fears its window to fight Iran is closing: On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly commanded his military to destroy as many Iranian arms industry targets as possible within the next 48 hours. This order reportedly came in reaction to President Trump offering a 15-point plan for ending the war. America’s attempts at peace in the region may soon override Netanyahu and Israel’s efforts to stop Iran. This trend is prophesied in the Bible.
Saudi leader urges America to keep fighting: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud, Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, is pushing President Trump to continue his war against Iran, the New York Times reported Tuesday. Sources informed by American officials say Crown Prince Mohammed sees Iran as a long-term threat that will be solved only when its current regime is ousted. He sees the current war as a “historic opportunity” to do this. This underscores the prophesied development of Saudi Arabia being part of an anti-Iran alliance.
Germany fills in for British NATO command: This week Germany announced that one of its frigates, the Sachsen, will replace Britain’s hms Dragon as the flagship of Standing nato Maritime Group 1, an immediate reaction force that operates in the North Atlantic, Baltic and North Sea, after the Dragon was deployed to the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The group remains under the command of British officers, but the fact that they are aboard the Sachsen is a reminder that Britain’s Royal Navy is dangerously weak. Prophecy shows that relying on Germany will prove to be a fatal mistake.
DOJ settles lawsuit with Flynn over Russia probe prosecution: Yesterday, the U.S. Justice Department settled a lawsuit with Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (Ret.), former national security adviser to President Donald Trump. The agreement resolves Flynn’s 2023 claim of malicious prosecution during the 2017–2019 probe into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Flynn had sought at least $50 million; the government agreed to pay him $1.2 million and called the settlement an important step in addressing the probe, led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2021 and died last week at age 81. Gerald Flurry’s book America Under Attack exposes how the Obama administration conspired to smear General Flynn in a plot to realign the nation’s interests with those of Iran, the world’s greatest terrorist-sponsoring nation and a regime Flynn had repeatedly warned about.
