Meta agrees to $17B settlement in ‘exploit young users’ multi-state case

Meta agreed on Wednesday to pay $17 billion to settle a lawsuit brought by a bipartisan coalition of state AGs who had alleged that the trillion-dollar company had designed its social media platforms to “exploit young users’ vulnerabilities, foster compulsive use, and maximize the time young people spend on Facebook and Instagram.”

Virginia, represented by our attorney general, Jay Jones, will get $353 million from the settlement, which will go toward initiatives to teach children how to unplug and reduce their reliance on social media.

Which is to say, big nothingburger, as far as what the money is going to go toward.

And really, the other big part of the settlement – the concessions by Meta that it will implement new safety features to protect kids on Facebook and Instagram, including a supposed “hard cap” on daily time limits and nighttime blocks for minors and limited school-time access for kids on weekdays during the school year – like, yeah, that’s going to work in the real world.

It will take an estimated 0.0001 seconds for the first kid to figure out a way around it, and for that word to spread.

What really happened here is, Meta agreed to cut the AGs what amounts to a tiny check, for a company of its size – $17 billion is 1.1 percent of Meta’s $1.47 trillion market cap – to, in essence, buy PR for what will amount to almost doing nothing to change the way it does business vis-à-vis young folks.

That’s what the Meta side is telling itself – we didn’t lose a legal battle, we just bought ourselves insulation from future criticism.

Cue the victory lap from Jay Jones.

“Today’s historic settlement proves that no matter how deep a company’s pockets, or how vast their legal armies, when major corporations and Big Tech companies put the safety of our children at risk to turn a profit, Virginia will bring them to justice,” Jones said, in a statement put out by his office.

“With this relief, Virginia will finally be able to put substantial resources behind initiatives to undo these harms, prevent future harms and change the face of how young people interact with social media for years to come by continuing to hold social media companies accountable,” Jones said.

In reality, we’ll blow $353 million on TV ads and programs that the kids forced to enroll in them will roll their eyes at, so that adults can pat themselves on the backs for having done something.