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Pay 25% from your 2025 profit for harming children since at least 2019 and be able to continue doing so. Sounds like a loss for society and a win for Meta.
by _ink_ 1mo ago
Pay 25% from your 2025 profit for harming children since at least 2019 and be able to continue doing so. Sounds like a loss for society and a win for Meta.
- pier25 1mo agoWhy 2019? Facebook was already immensely popular a decade before that.
- _ink_ 1mo agoThis is when Frances Haugen joined Facebook and later leaked documents from that time. So while Facebook probably was harmful before that time, since then we have it on paper.
- oneneptune 1mo agoThe article outlines several changes Meta is having to implement that curbs the "and be able to continue doing so" argument a bit. That said, I wish these settlements included tobacco-esque requirements for ongoing funds to educate people. The tobacco settlement funds have been somewhat successful.
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- mscbuck 1mo agoSomehow I have no faith that these changes will be enforced, or appropriately drawn up by parties who actually have the knowledge to do so.
- bsimpson 1mo agoHave they? I know a lot of my peers went to college for free with the Millennium Scholarship. But so many young people vape now that it's becoming cool to smoke analog cigarettes. I barely knew anyone who smoked 10-20y ago. Many people that age now do.
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- SoftTalker 1mo agoSmoking tobacco is something people have done for centuries. Pretty unlikely that we'd eliminate it in a few decades.
- RicardoLuis0 1mo agosmoking tobacco is bad, but smoking cigarettes is much, much worse because of all the extra shit that's added in to make them even more addictive (and more carcinogenic) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_additives_in_cigarettes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_additives_in_cigarette...
- rwyinuse 1mo agoIf you inhale the smoke, it's quite irrelevant whether smoking an industrial cigarette, pipe or a hand-crafted cigar without additives. You'll probably get lung cancer anyway if you continue it long enough. Smoke is always carcinogenic. I don't really get the point when there are many ways of getting nicotine without the smoke.
- SoftTalker 1mo agoI don't smoke, but when I've talked to smokers a lot of it is about the ritual. Filling the pipe, cutting and smelling the cigar, or removing the cigarette from the pack, tapping it, lighting it up, the taste and smell of the smoke, it's all part of it not just the nicotine.
- d1sxeyes 1mo agoThat’s not true. The lifetime risk of a smoker getting lung cancer is about 10-20%, not “probably” (somewhere between 15 and 30 times higher risk than a non-smoker). In fact, only about half of smokers die prematurely from their smoking. I mean, I’m not saying start smoking, but also let’s at least have accurate facts.
- GrinningFool 1mo agoThe changes seem based on age, which just makes it more imperative that phone manufacturers perform even /more/ reliable age verification... The business model, incentives, and practices that led them down this road? No, those don't need to change.
- jonhohle 1mo agoI just bought a $50 Android phone, quad core, 8GB RAM, 1 year of mobile service (albeit limited, but free WiFi is everywhere). Have all the age restriction you want. A kid goes into the store with their lunch money (a few days worth) and they have a valid phone number and an unrestricted device. Everything requires ID to use? I’m not sure what the answer is, but I agree.
- InexSquirrel 1mo agoInteresting point. Clear and visible warnings similar to tabacco and gambling websites (at least here in NZ) would be great. A clear and explicit call out of the dangers and a direct link on how to get help would be a good place to start. I really like the idea of small scale social media, that's focused on small groups of like minded people and communities, but damn Facebook is a cesspool of not-that.
- BrenBarn 1mo agoAnd what will be the penalty when they inevitably fail to make meaningful changes? Another fine as weak as this one? No. The penalty now should be ten or a hundred times as large as this.
- aprilthird2021 1mo agoI dunno, I kinda feel they have to pay the price for governments not having applicable regulations on this kinda stuff. It's not reasonable to expect them to put up rules their competition don't have to abide by, and if the government has 0 rules regarding social media, what should they do? They're not solely responsible for phone addiction but none of their competitors get sued the same...
- iso1631 1mo agoYou can't use the word "reasonable" when dealing with companies with more power than most governments
- Sindisil 1mo agoYeah, exactly. Who can expect smol bean Meta to not act like rapacious vultures when all the other social media corporations get to?
- freejazz 1mo agoSo what should the law be? Don't be negligent? Don't be reckless? It already functions that way. Do we need to have statutes expressly dictating what people are allowed to do?
- alfalfasprout 1mo agoYeah but politicians get to claim this is a win. Let's be honest, that's the real reason the prosecution went for a deal this small.
- aprilthird2021 1mo agoMeta has the pocketbook to appeal this to a non-jury setup where they'd be more likely to win (imo most juries are ready to agree to any penalty on social media companies for any reason)
- Noaidi 1mo agoAnd if people do not think Meta settled without input from the Trump administration and a possible reward for doing so, well, I got this bridge in Brooklyn to sell you, barely used. I wonder which way Facebook's algorithms will tilt in this years mid-term elections....
- zbentley 1mo agoMaybe, but I'm not sure how that might work. Meta was being sued by states in federal court, here--not the federal government. Is the theory that they would have paid more in penalties had not the White House pressured the federal court in Oakland (who aren't necessarily nominated by/beholden to Trump) to reject bigger demands from the plaintiffs? Or is the theory that the White House influenced the plaintiffs' (states) lawyers to offer/accept smaller settlements than they would have otherwise? Or that the White House pressured Meta to accept a larger settlement when they ordinarily would have fought more (in which case, I don't understand what Meta gets: they lose this case and then you theorize they'll help manipulate elections in favor of the group that forced the loss)?
- MC995 1mo agoDo you have any evidence of this, or is this just another anti-Trump conspiracy theory?
- nevertoolate 1mo ago
- nerder92 1mo ago> META Total Annual Revenue in 2025: $200.97 billion (up from $164.50 billion in 2024). They literally don’t care.
- lokar 1mo agoAnd while they paid a reasonable amount of tax in 2025, that was a one off. They normally pay 3-5%.
- voakbasda 1mo agoIs anyone the slightest bit surprised? Our courts are no longer effective at bringing justice. They only have the law, and the law flagrantly favors the rich and their pet corporations.
- reaperducer 1mo agoIs anyone the slightest bit surprised? Our courts are no longer effective at bringing justice. They only have the law, and the law flagrantly favors the rich and their pet corporations. This was a settlement. The court did not get a chance to issue a ruling or do any of the things you're pretending to be angry about.
- teachrdan 1mo agoWhen the threat of winning in court is reduced, you get weaker settlements. These two factors are directly related to one another.
- verdverm 1mo agoThis is what the DC budget (Washington, as opposed to data center) is for.
- nistiminic 1mo agoThe other article says: "OAKLAND, California, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Meta Platforms (META.O), opens new tab will pay up to $18 billion over the next decade" [1] So it's 1.8 billion per year and that's a lot less than 25%. [1] https://www.reuters.com/business/meta-reaches-18-billion-settlements-over-childrens-social-media-addiction-2026-08-26/ https://www.reuters.com/business/meta-reaches-18-billion-set...
- pseudosavant 1mo agoExactly. Meta basically got out of this without any meaningful penalty or deterant for the future. Paid out to the 50 states, it only averages $36M a year per state. I can't believe all of the state AGs signed on for this no-op.
- lrvick 1mo agoThe pain inflicted is way worse than the cash. They now must make teens have aggressive time limits and time of day boundaries. Meta knows this means teens will leave forever to competitors and never come back as they age. That is a death sentence for them unless they can somehow convince their competitors to follow suit. I kind of hope the competitors laugh and watch Meta burn. Then each get sued to the same end individually. Tiktok and YouTube are going to cannibalize Meta.
- pseudosavant 1mo agoExcept that the settlement includes making YouTube and TikTok implement the same stuff. The settlement amount stops by a third if the states don’t make their competition make the same changes.
- hoppp 1mo agoYeah, they should at least pay it to the children. For rich people, fines are just the price of doing things
- root-parent 1mo agoThe US politicians class is corrupt and captured by special interests. These 17B were already as provisions on their balance sheet. They will spend four times this in the next data center....
- TZubiri 1mo agoMay depend on whether their profits come from less than or more than 25% of 'children-harming'.
- gherkinnn 1mo ago> knowingly and willingly harming children and adults ftfy Inexcusable behaviour and Meta needs to be skinned. These measures are a joke.