July 1, 2026
(META, GOOGL, SNAP, PINS) California Softens Under-16 Social Media Bill, but Passage Odds Rise
We have raised our odds to 70% that California’s AB 1709, which would restrict social media companies, including META, GOOGL, SNAP, and PINS, from providing addictive features to users under 16, will become law. AB…
June 17, 2026
(NVDA, AMD, GOOGL, META, CRWV, Anthropic, OpenAI) AI Regulation: State Patchwork, Federal Export Controls, and NDAA Chip Watch
We remain skeptical that Congress will pass comprehensive federal AI legislation this year or likely next year, leaving companies to navigate a state-by-state regulatory patchwork since no current federal law exists that broadly preempts state…
May 26, 2026
(META, GOOGL, SNAP, STUB, LYV) California Ban on Kids Access to Social Media and 10% Cap on Ticket Resale Like to Advance
We wanted to give you and update on two bills in the California legislature, impacting META, GOOGL, SNAP, STUB, and LYV, that we have been following and which we expect to be considered on the…
May 13, 2026
(META, GOOGL, SNAP, TikTok) AB 1709 Watch: Timeline and Outlook for California’s Youth Social Media Bill
Below we provide an update on AB 1709, legislation in California that would ban kids under 16 years old from creating accounts on social media platforms (META, GOOGL, SNAP, TikTok) with addictive features. We continue…
May 4, 2026
(META) New Mexico Public Nuisance Remedies Trial Begins – Material Downside Risk and Precedent Implications
The remedies phase of State of New Mexico v. Meta Platforms (META), Inc.—a landmark public-nuisance bench trial—opens this morning in Santa Fe District Court before Judge Bryan Biedscheid, who also oversaw the earlier jury trial…
April 20, 2026
Capitol Policy Weekly: Reconciliation, Warsh, Export Controls, California Social Media in Focus
With the House and Senate both in session this week, Washington’s focus will remain concentrated on the Iran-U.S. conflict, which heated up yesterday after the U.S. seized an Iranian ship. We have though an escalation…
April 17, 2026
(META, GOOGL, SNAP, TikTok) California’s Bipartisan Push to Ban Under-16s from Social Media Clears First Hurdle
We assign roughly 65% probability that California’s pending legislation, AB 1709, which is a bipartisan ban on kids under 16 years old from creating accounts on social media platforms (META, GOOGL, SNAP, TikTok) that have…
April 9, 2026
Social Media Litigation and META/GOOGL Potential Valuations
The recent social media verdicts in New Mexico and California raise the valuation question for investors about how far P/Es might fall for META (META) and (Alphabet) GOOGL assuming litigation risks continue and potentially intensifies. History’s answer is that the path isn’t linear. In different cases, it took the market time…
April 7, 2026
Conference Call Takeaways: (META, GOOGL) Meta and Google and the Risk of Addictive Design and Child Safety Verdicts
We had the following takeaways from last week’s conference call we hosted on the recent verdicts in the META and GOOGL trials in New Mexico and California with two lawyers who are very familiar with similar Internet cases. A transcript or audio recording of the call is available…
March 18, 2026
META, GOOGL, RDDT: Section 230 Under Attack in Senate Commerce Committee Hearing
While this morning’s Senate Commerce Committee hearing, entitled “Liability or Deniability? Platform Power as Section 230 Turns 30,” was lively and somewhat surprisingly well attended, we seriously doubt any material erosion of Section 230 protections for social media companies such as Meta (META), Alphabet’s YouTube (GOOGL), and Reddit (RDDT) will pass…