Last week I reported that Meta went to trial against dozens of U.S. states that accuse it of building Instagram and Facebook to hook children and hiding what it knew about the damage. The states were seeking both damages and changes to Facebook and Instagram including getting rid of likes and infinite scroll from both apps, capping screen time for younger users, and ordering Meta to delete the data it collected from under-13 users.
Well, the lawsuit is already over. Meta agreed to settle the case for as much as $18B and impose restrictions on teen accounts, though there are some major caveats. Here’s a breakdown of the settlement:
- Meta said it would only pay 70% of the settlement, or around $12.7B, to the states over a period of 10 years. Seriously, 10 freaking years? So like $1.27B a year, a rounding error, divided by 47 states?
- The other $5.3B is conditional on TikTok and YouTube ponying up a collective $5.3B and making similar changes to their apps for teens. In other words, Meta wants an even playing field across the social media landscape.
- Outside of financial damages, Meta will add a two-hour daily limit for teens, restrict access to Facebook and Instagram at night, and mute push notifications during school hours.
- Meta will also implement better age verification methods for users under 18 and implement stronger, more user-friendly parental controls.
The settlement was approved on Wednesday by Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, so this is officially a done deal.
I have a message for all 47 states involved in this lawsuit: Y’all are a bunch of pussies!
Why in the world would you settle this lawsuit for “maybe $18B” over 10 years? That’s like $38M each year per state on average, which isn’t even the case because some states receive a disproportional amount of the settlement. I thought the purpose of this case was to send a message? The only message you’ve reinforced was, “Do what you want, Big Tech, and then pay a nominal fee for the privilege.”
Are y’all broke or something? Did you really need this pocket change for your state? Meta previously estimated that damages could reach as high as $1.4T, and your own lawyers were shooting for $200B, but the number you landed on was “maybe $18B”? Effectively, Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t have to testify to his crimes for the equivalent of around half a percent of annual revenue? That’s not a settlement. It’s a license to kill.
The attorneys general that ran this case should be ashamed of themselves, as should Judge Rogers for immediately approving the settlement.
I’m not alone in feeling this way either. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier refused to join the settlement, calling it “a slap on the wrist for a trillion-dollar company,” and saying that the payouts are “peanuts compared to the profound harms.” He added, “Trying to wipe out a decade of harm to the nation’s youth with one month’s cash flow is an insult. We’ll see them at trial.”
