What it was like to observe grieving mother and father stare down Mark Zuckerberg in court docket

Round a dozen mother and father huddled within the dim hallway outdoors the courtroom in February, nervously gripping paper tickets. They have been evident at a grey tote bag held by a member of the court docket workers — the one who’d decide, by lottery, in the event that they made it inside. Pinned on baggage and coats, butterfly clips honored youngsters they’d misplaced, deaths these mother and father hyperlink to their youngsters’s experiences on-line. The clips have been a symbolic gesture chosen to not inadvertently prejudice the jury, which might resolve if social media firms might be held responsible for the sorts of harms they consider their youngsters skilled. If the quantity on a dad or mum’s ticket got here up, they’d win one in every of 15 public seats to see that jury with their very own eyes. Maybe extra importantly, they’d see the person a lot of them blame for his or her youngsters’s deaths: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who was set to testify that day.