Meta Lawsuit Demonstrates Claims and Evidence

A lawsuit filed against Meta by 33 states provides claims and evidence of manipulation, most significantly, a “scheme to exploit young users for profit.” Students might be interested in analyzing the suit and drawing their own conclusions.

Although a lawsuit typically isn’t considered business communication genre, this one demonstrates a few features faculty teach for writing reports. The first is a detailed table of contents with message titles, or “talking headings.” Students can read them and see whether they form a complete argument. They’ll notice major and minor claims and can analyze the evidence provided for each.

The “Summary of the Case” (Case Summary?) serves as a report executive summary. On pages 1 – 4 (6 – 9 in the PDF), the report outlines the major arguments. The organization is standard for legal briefs but weird to business communicators. We see a numbered list of paragraphs with no relation to each other. Paragraph 2 lists four parts of Meta’s “scheme.” Paragraphs 3 and 4 explain the first and second parts; paragraph 5 continues describing the second part, and so on. The concept of a subheading is lost.

Of course, legal writing is its own specialty. But students can draw comparisons to business reports as they dissect the arguments against the parent of the popular Instagram. The case also is interesting because the litigation approach is new—similar to those of suits against tobacco and pharmaceutical companies that claimed consumer harm.