Morning Brew Daily - Zuckerberg Answers if Social Media is Addictive & The Rich Are Having More Babies Again

Episode Date: February 19, 2026

Episode 783: Neal and Toby recap Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony in the landmark trial on social media addiction. Then, a debate arises between state law and federal law on the allowance of prediction markets. Also, India’s AI summit draws some of the biggest names in tech as the country hopes to become a beacon of the newest frontier. Meanwhile, Neal shares his favorite numbers on NYC birth rates, a Louver scandal, and a tax provision that is bringing horse racing back.  Learn more about FlavCity at https://go.shopflavcity.com/mbds  Subscribe to Morning Brew Daily for more of the news you need to start your day. Share the show with a friend, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.swap.fm/l/mbd-note⁠⁠⁠  Watch Morning Brew Daily Here:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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pwc.com slash US slash brew AI. That's pwc.com slash us slash brewAI. Good morning Brue Daily show. I'm Neil Fryman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, the White House and U.S. states go to battle over prediction markets. Then Zuck took the stand yesterday to argue that social media is not addictive. It's Thursday, February 19th.

Let's ride. Good morning and happy Thursday. Not that I want to divide Americans more than they already are, but we got to talk about this big condiment survey that was just released. Yougov asked Americans their favorite and least favorite condiments, and the results will absolutely spark a food fight in your group chat. At the top of the list, the most loved condiment in America is peanut butter, which is debatably even a condiment in the first place.

It's followed by honey, salsa, barbecue sauce, chocolate sauce, ketchup, and maple syrup. Down at the bottom of the list, Hoysen sauce is Americans' least loved condiment, accompanied by other bottom dwellers, Thousand Island dressing, relish, and fish sauce. Toby, what about this ranking irrationally upsets you? Well, peanut butter is not a condiment. Let's just get that out of the way first and foremost. This really just feels like an ignorance poll, though,

because they also ask respondents, which condiments do you keep at home? And wouldn't you know it? Those further down on the list were the least bought as well. So not a lot of people probably have poison sauce in their coverage. Not a lot of people have fish sauce. So that was my biggest takeaway from it. I do want to call out chocolate sauce, though,

because that was a top five favorite condiment of Americans, but a bottom five owned one. So people are like looking at, they're wishing they had it in their coverage. What is chocolate sauce? Is it syrup? Is it Hershey's chocolate syrup? Is it Nutella?

I don't quite understand what chocolate sauce is. I'm wondering if it's the sauce you just put on your ice cream, which then opens up an entirely new definition of condiments once more again. So there was a lot of things to debate. So please, this is great group chat fodder. So send it around. And now a word from our sponsor, FlavCity. Toby, you seem a little jittery.

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Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 premium and a year of Xbox GamePass Ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn more at Windows.com slash student offer. While supplies last ends June 30th, terms at AKA.m.m.m.m. Mark Zuckerberg was in the hot seat yesterday as he testified in a landmark social media trial that accused social media sites of designing knowingly addicting products that are harmful to younger users.

This case, which combines complaints from more than 1,600 plaintiffs, 350 families, and 250 school districts, claims that social media platforms like Instagram or YouTube are harmful in the same way gambling or cigarettes are, especially when it comes to younger people. The trial centers around a 20-year-old woman who says her mental health deteriorated after she became hooked on social media as a young child. She accuses meta and YouTube of intentionally designing features like Infinite Scroll to be addictive to children. But the platforms are pushing a different point of view, calling out scientific evidence that shows there's no link between tech use and addiction.

So far, Instagram head Adam Masary has taken the stand to testify that the app was not quote, clinically addictive, while yesterday Zuck was pressed about the flood of younger users on meta's platforms. Overall, Neil, the issue of social media addiction has never quite gotten its day in court like this, while Snap and TikTok settled outside of court in this particular case, hundreds more lion wait, and meta and YouTube are still very much in the crosshairs. A lot is at stake here. As he was arriving at the courthouse, a security guard at the metal detector asked him if he had any metal on him. He said, I have a gold chain on. And I guess this is Zuck's new era. And then when they got into the courtroom, the judge said, hey, if anyone is wearing meta-rayband smart glasses,

I need you to turn them off and stop recording because that is not allowed. This is very serious and I will hold you in contempt of court if you do record this proceeding on your smart glasses. And apparently a lot of Zuck's cohort were wearing meta-ray-band. So anytime Zuck appears in front of Congress or a judge, it's always kind of a circus. And this case was no different. Yeah, and one of the big lines of questioning in court was about the amount of younger users on their platform because ostensibly the rules of Instagram and meta and Facebook are that you can't be 13 years or younger and sign up for an account. And yet there are studies that show that a lot of younger kids did end up having an account.

And Zuck's argument against that was basically like age verification is obviously partly our responsible, but it's also the responsibility of platforms like Apple and Google. he's like device level age verification should come before app level verification like meta. When you get a phone, that is the person or the entity that should be responsible for determining someone's age. And then that can filter through to all the apps that you download on your phone. So that was kind of a hidden exchange that didn't generate a lot of headlines. But when it comes to age verification debates, seeing him kind of place the burden onto the platforms like Apple and Google rather than the apps was an interesting tact. He and Apple do not get along.

Now, let's zoom out. Why is this case so important? Well, this is social media's big tobacco moment. There are 1,500 pending social media addiction cases that are waiting in the wings. But before those come to trial, they're going to lay out around 20, what are known as bellwether cases. This one included in this one is the first of those bellwether cases. They see how a jury responds to all of these.

different arguments, see what they decide, and then decide how to pursue these other 1,500 cases. So that's why this one's really important because so many others are just waiting in the wings, and this really sets the tone for how those proceed. And it seems like it's meeting the moment right now, at least globally, because the U.S. Surgeon General back in 2024 called for warning labels on social media say that it is associated with adolescent mental health harm. There's a lot of international movement around this. Australia quite literally banned children under 16 from social media back in December of last year.

And then Denmark, Spain, other countries are all considering similar legislation like that. So it does seem to be a moment right now for this exact trial to take place. Who knows what the actual result of this particular bellwether case will be. But there's certainly pressure mounting from all angles right now. But the verdict on yesterday was mostly that Zuckerberg escaped unscathed. He didn't really face any tough questioning. he wasn't sweating. It really wasn't particularly tough on him. And so that was the general observation inside the courthouse was that Zuck wasn't really pushed to his limits. All right, let's move on. Much like

dogs use urine to market their territory, state national regulators are in a turf war to determine who has jurisdiction over prediction markets. The head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Mike Seelig, drew a line in the sand earlier this week, saying that the markets are not considered gambling and thus belong under the watchful eye of his agency. But states see things differently. Nevada's gaming control board has taken legal action against both Kalshi in Polly Market, saying they are carrying out unlicensed betting operations in the state

and need state regulation. The big question at play here, are prediction markets gambling, or do they resemble more traditional derivatives which would fall under CFTC jurisdiction? Herting the CFT's case that these aren't betting sites is the fact that a lot of people use these sites to place bets on sports.

As of early 2026, sports-related contracts account for approximately 90% of the total trading volume on CalShe. So if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, maybe it's a duck. Either way, prediction markets have a powerful ally in their corner as the Trump administration is pushing a pretty generous definition of commodities and futures that encompasses events contracts. The CFTC has sort of become the de facto regulator for crypto 2, which operates in a similar gray area and wants to add some duck, I mean, prediction markets onto their plate, too.

Seelig's been on one. There's been this huge PR push by the CFTC to, in support of prediction markets as it pertains to what's going on in this Nevada courtroom. So Seelig, he wrote a op-ed in the Wall Street Journal saying that the CFTC will no longer sit idly by while overzealous state governments undermine the agency's exclusive jurisdiction over these markets. He further added that event contracts allow businesses and individuals to hedge event-driven risks, enable investors to manage portfolio exposure, and provide the public with information about the outcome of future events. He said these things are great, and they should be part of anybody's sort of investment scheme.

And he also, in addition to the Wall Street Journal opinion piece, he posted a video on Exx on Tuesday. It went kind of viral. He said he sent a message to anyone who's going to challenge the CFTC's authority. We will see you in court. many people responded to this, including fellow Republicans, those who represented states that want to push back on Kalshi and Pauly Market, including Utah Governor Spencer Cox, who replied to this particular video and said, I don't remember the CFDC having authority over the derivative market of LeBron James Rebounds. These prediction markets, you are breathlessly defending, are gambling pure and simple. Yeah, we were trying to draw the partisan lines on this issue, and it's a little bit difficult because everyone kind of has a different take on it because it's a nascent sort of hedging,

I don't know, call it technology out there right now. The CFTC, though, is a unique regulator in the sense that it's a lot smaller than the SEC, which deals with, you know, trading and the broader financial markets. The SEC has 5,000 employees, you know, that are making sure Martha Stewart isn't insider trading. The CFTC has 700 employees, and yet here it is trying to sort of punch above its weight to say, we are the people you go to when it comes to crypto. We're the people you come to when it comes to a, Vents contract. So fascinating that it is almost a PR push saying like this is under our

jurisdictions. We make the rules here, not you, states. Moving on, India is currently hosting a massive AI summit hoping to burnish its tech resume with over 20 world leaders and tech CEOs like Sam Altman and Sundar Pichai in attendance. So far, it's been bumpy, not Firefest level, but I'll let you be the judge. In one of the embarrassing episodes, a staffer at a private Indian university showed off a robotic dog she claimed was developed by the college. But after people on the internet got wind of it, they quickly busted this claim. Apparently, this robot dog was made by a Chinese robotics company is already commercially available and widely used in research. Then the university bungled its response. At first,

it called the incident a propaganda campaign intended to smear students, but later issued a new statement saying that this staffer was ill-informed and gave incorrect information. Organizers hoping to quiet the distraction have booted the university from the show. But that hasn't been the only miss of this convention when the summit kicked off on Monday, attendees complained of no food or drink, long lines, and delays entering the venue. India's leaders will try to avoid any more bad press because this is about as high stakes as it gets for the world's most populous country to establish itself as a global force in AI. I don't want to dwell too much on this robot incidents, but I do want to dive into the fact that it was a unitary robot, which at one point was on sale

in the U.S. via Walmart. You could buy this robot via Walmart and get here, the university was, you know, allegedly trying to pass it off as their own work. So obviously that made a lot of headlines. That is a big snafu. But in general, we should just zoom out at this summit because India is really trying to place its stake as a global AI hub, as an innovative place. And they are getting a lot of attention. I mean, that list of executives that you mentioned of attendees is the top tier of AI. It is the who's who of AI.

So even though there were some delays, even though there were. some issues, they are trying to lean into developing themselves as a credible place for AI investment. And the money is coming. Blackstone's leading a $600 million investment in a local AI company. Over $50 billion has been announced from big tech. They want to target AI because it is a massive user base. Like there's a ton of growth there. China's effectively closed off to the U.S. tech market. So they love the relatively forgiving regulatory. appetite of India. It represents a big opportunity for them, which is why you're seeing this big AI summit. And many of the AI battles that are taking place in the United States are just

kind of shipping over to India right now. Remember we watched the Super Bowl? It was Anthropic versus Open AI. Well, that is happening exactly in India. They just hosted their version of the Super Bowl, which was a T20 Quicket World Cup between India and Pakistan. And who bought all the prime ad slots was ChatGPT. We're used to talking about the second biggest market for a lot of American multinationals being either Europe or China. But when it comes to AI, the second biggest market, besides the United States, for these companies, is India. ChatGBT, GBT, BT has 100 million users in India. It's its second biggest market. Anthropic, also the second biggest market is in India. And that's because people there are really embracing AI, especially companies. New research

showed that 89% of Indian firms are using AI versus 62% globally. And you're seeing a weird tact from, not weird tact from big tech companies in America. Open AI and Google are offering access to their LLMs for free in India because they're in a all-out race to, you know, capture this very valuable market as well. There's certainly some questions that are going to Prime Minister Modi saying, do we want AI? Like the same questions we're facing the United States about is it going to replace work? The India's largest private sector employer is IT services. Tata consultancy services. Had their biggest job cuts ever last year. So again, this AI is not uniquely affecting America alone.

Like these conversations are happening abroad and in India as well. And it got really awkward today. So Modi's going to address the summit today. And he had a bunch of tech leaders up on stage. There were 13 of them. They all were supposed to hold hands for a photo op and raise their hand in the air. There are two people who are the only two people in that photo up who are not holding hands. You can go look at the picture are Dario Amadeh of Anthropic and Sam Altman of Open It is the most awkward thing I've ever seen. Is the rivalry getting heated, would one say? No, we won't say that.

All right, we're going to take a quick break and come back with Neil's numbers. Today we helped a... Latte for Sam. Coffee shop get an insurance quote simply and easily. And made sure... A floral delivery van was able to make someone's day. We're the Hartford, with decades of experience ensuring millions of unique small businesses. When it comes to your small business insurance,

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For my first number, in New York City, the only people having enough children to keep a population stable over time, 2.1 per household, are those making more than $10 million. Every other income group, from low-income folks to mere millionaires, are having fewer children than the richest of the rich, and not enough to sustain a population. The finding comes from Liena Zagare of the right-leaning think tank. Manhattan Institute, who looked at personal income tax brackets in 2023 and plotted them against birth rates. You can draw a few conclusions from this. One, only the ultra wealthy are having multiple kids in New York because they're the only ones who can afford to. A separate analysis by the city's controller found that a New York family would need to make $334,000 to afford the cost of care for one two-year-old. That is four times the median family income. Second, perhaps more

interestingly, is that major societal shifts could be underway in which kind of people are having the most kids. For most of human history, it was the high status, wealthy males that were going all cheaper by the dozen, think Genghis Khan. But that reversed. Starting around the industrial revolution and lasting until today, it was lower income people and not the richest who are having the most children. Now, there are clear signs that what's happening in New York is happening all across the world. The more money you have is correlated to the number of mouths you've decided to feed. Last week, we got a Neil's number about how. private schools in New York City were averaging over $70,000 a year to attend. I just checked in

the median rent in Manhattan was $4,695 last month. That's the third highest on a record. So New York City, baby. I can't wait for next year, next week's, you know's numbers that. I'd like to highlight another city, but there's just so it's so expensive here and it's just truly crazy to talk about. But you are right. For most of human history, this is how it's been. The richer you were, the more children that you had industrial realization actually flipped that relationship, but now in some developed societies, there are data points that show that the relationship may be flipping back. If you go across a broad swathed countries, 191 countries, fertility and GDP per capita are negatively correlated. But then when you

zoom in specifically on Europe, that correlation moves to zero. So again, that's not necessarily a massive correlation, but going from negative to zero is progress. And then actually, if you just kick out Luxembourg, it goes to a weekly positive relationship. So the narrative of post-industrial society was that the more developed a nation, the richer a country is, the less babies you have. That narrative might be flipping a little bit. Go back to Genghis Khan, though. A 2003 genetic study found that one out of every 200 men worldwide may carry as Y chromosome. That is crazy.

Okay. For my next number, the Louvre can't stop getting robbed or scammed. Last week, Paris prosecutors announced that nine people had been detained in connection to an a legal ticket scheme that cost the art museum nearly $12 million over a decade. These revelations come just months after robbers stole over $100 million worth of crown jewels in broad daylight treasures that have still not been found. The ticket scheme was similarly brazen. The people accused include Chinese tour guides who would bring in groups of tourists

up to 20 times a day, but reuse the same tickets multiple times. They're also accused of dividing up their tours into smaller groups to avoid paying the museum a commission fee, all helped by museum security who had been bribed to. look the other way. When asked whether the Louvre was out of control, the Museum's number two, told the AP that essentially, yes, it is. Quite simply, the Louvre is the biggest museum in the world, he said, adding that statistically, fraud is inevitable at a building of this scale. I don't understand how this fraud added up to $12 million, because if you are just dodging a museum commission fee, I don't understand how that's not the only thing they did. They also

use the same ticket for multiple people. The Louvre is pretty expensive. This was happening up to 20 times a day over 10 years. I, yeah, I was both surprised at the size of the fraud and confused about how you got to that number. But like, this was real fraud. Like, they were moving some of the proceeds from this scheme into real estate. Investigators seized more than a million dollars in cash, 500,000 from bank accounts more in real estate across France and Dubai. So you can quickly go from dodging commission fees to real estate in Dubai if the fraud is over a long enough timeline in a large enough scale. And I just love how the Louvre leadership is shrugging their shoulders. This thing is too big.

You know, it's the most visited museum in the world. It spans acres and acres. And, you know, the guy is just like, honestly, we just don't have the logistics to keep up with the amount of theft or fraud that's happening. And anyone else in my position probably would do the same. It's just brutal because this was supposed to be just a year ago, Emmanuel Macron said, we have a Louvre new Renaissance project. We're going to move the Mona Lisa to a different room. Like, we're going to change this whole thing.

And since then, we've had a... $100 million jewel theft, $12 million fraud scheme, some historic artwork was recently damaged from water dripping down. There's been so many staff strikes and closures. The list just keeps going on and on. Okay, my final number is a fascinating example of how a small change in the tax code can revive a struggling industry. And the industry in question is horse racing.

According to the New York Times, owners spent $1.5 billion on fast race horses in North America in 2025, a nearly 21% increase from the year before. And at one of the top horse auctions, the Keenland September yearling sale, thoroughbreds fetched $531 million in total sales, a global record and up almost 24% from the prior year. It's a stunning turnaround for a sport that was basically dying from years of cheating scandals, gambling competition, and concerns over animal safety.

And it has a new tax break to thank. The one big beautiful bill, which was signed by President Trump last summer, introduced a new provision called a bonus depreciation, which allows companies to immediately. deduct the full cost of assets like equipment, machinery, and horses. Yes, thanks to a last-ditch lobbying effort by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, race horses were included in the list of assets that fall under the tax break. And it's been an absolute game changer for the economics of breeding. Toby, they saved horse racing because now you can immediately depreciate your

new horse. It's crazy to think about depreciating a horse, but I guess under the law, that is now an asset you can do that too. There have been a steady drop in horses. born in North America over the last decade. In 2000, they're around 38,000 Foles born in North America. Last year there was just 17,300. So that's a 50% drop over a few decades. So I'm thinking about this, though, if there are fewer horses, there's now a tax incentive to buy horses. It does seem like horse prices are going to shoot up, which is absolutely happening right now. A lot of people are going to these auctions and saying it is crazy money at the sales right now. You have to spend a lot. So it has always been a rich person sport, but now it's becoming a 1% of the 1%

of the 1% sport where a lot of normal breeders like, I can't compete with these prices right now. There's not enough horses out there. And now all the rich people in the world want to use this tax break too. Also a good time to be an accountant in the focused very narrowly on the horse racing industry. Okay, let's sprint to the finish with one final headline. Social media timelines have been made brighter thanks to two animals who have captured the internet's heart in recent days. First, is the internet. is Nazgol, a two-year-old Czechoslovakian wolfdog, who was seen sprinting toward the finish line of a cross-country skiing race at the Winter Olympics, right behind two competitors.

Apparently, he lives at a nearby bed and breakfast, had broken out and found himself in contention for a medal. The other animal captivating the world is Punch, a macaque at a zoo near Tokyo. Punch is an adorable baby monkey who was abandoned by his mom shortly after he was born last summer, but has struggled to find friends at the enclosure. To cheer up this lonely soul, Punch's caretakers have given him a plush orangutangutank from IKEA, which he's been clinging to everywhere he goes melting hearts around the world. Toby, I know your team punch. I'm team punch, but I want to talk about this dog first, living a better life than we ever could. It did get me thinking, though, what distance would a human beat a dog in a cross-country skiing race? Because

my fun fact is that humans are technically the fastest animal in the animal kingdom over a marathon at distance because we're really good at cooling ourselves. We have specialized tendons like our Achilles. So we definitely beat dogs over a 50K, but could we beat it over a 10K2? Clabo, who, you know, is the greatest winner-olympian ever, skied right around a 20-minute 10-K. That is 3.13 per mile.

Could this dog... I don't actually know the answer to this. We should pit it. Clearly the dog knows the course now. Yeah, I know. At least the last couple meters. It was very funny, too, because we did get the finish line photo,

and like, that's been going around social. media and then punch. We got to talk about little punch. For me, from my perspective, I think punch is cuter than moodang. Oh, absolutely. Because it tugs on your heartstrings for sure. I mean, we were showing photos around the office. People legitimately just crying because this monkey, you just want to be accepted, which, by the way, he is getting accepted now. So now people are crying happy tears. Okay, that is all the time we have. Thanks for starting your morning with us and have a wonderful Thursday. If you want to get in touch, send an email to Morningbrewdaily at morningbrew.com or DM us on Instagram at MBDaily Show. Let's roll the

credits. Emily Milliron is our executive producer. Raymond Lou is our producer. Our associate producers are Olivia Graham and Olivia Lake. Hair and makeup will be your friend Punch. Devin Emery is our president and our shows of production of Morning Brew. Great show today, Neil. Let's run it back tomorrow. All pay off your home, travel for life. Drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Bucks slot machine by Aristocrat Gaming, Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is giving one person a $1.6 million dream package. The biggest prize in Yamaba's history. Club Serrano members can earn instant prizes and secure a spot in the finale

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