Meta has agreed to pay as much as $16.68 billion to settle a landmark case brought by 29 state attorneys general who accused the social media giant of deliberately designing Facebook and Instagram to addict children and teenagers.
The sweeping agreement also requires Meta to change features on its platforms, including the introduction of daily time limits, “nighttime blocks” restricting app use before bedtime and “enhanced age assurance measures” aimed at preventing underage children from accessing Facebook and Instagram, according to a court filing Wednesday.
Under the terms of what was described as a “consent judgement,” Meta will also develop “additional tools to help parents and guardians to protect their children online.” The agreement still requires approval from the court before becoming final.
Investors reacted positively to the development, sending Meta shares up 4% in premarket trading. The settlement came only days after a closely watched federal trial began in California, where Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had been expected to take the witness stand.
By reaching an agreement, Meta avoided a trial that posed what observers viewed as an extraordinary challenge to the foundation of its social media business. The company is still confronting thousands of other lawsuits in California state and federal courts that accuse its platforms of contributing to a mental health crisis among teenagers.
Earlier in the week, jurors heard blistering testimony from Arturo Béjar, a former Meta safety researcher, who told the court that “you just cannot trust Mark Zuckerberg with kids.”
Béjar went further, accusing Zuckerberg personally of giving the public a distorted picture of how seriously the company addressed the safety of young users.
“I felt that he created a false and misleading impression of Facebook’s commitment to young people,” said Béjar, who estimated that he spoke to Zuckerberg about safety issues at least 100 times during his tenure.
The group of state attorneys general alleged that Meta, whose business depends heavily on digital advertising revenue, violated federal law by collecting data from children without first obtaining their parents’ consent.
The states also targeted specific elements of Facebook and Instagram, alleging that features such as the “like button” and recommendation algorithms were deliberately engineered to keep young users hooked. According to the allegations, those features contributed to increased rates of anxiety, depression, self-harm and even suicide among teenagers using the platforms.
California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey, the four states that took the lead in the litigation, additionally accused Meta of misleading the public about how significant the dangers were for children using its social media products.
In the run-up to the trial, Meta asserted that the states were pursuing damages totaling $1.4 trillion, an amount approaching the company’s entire market capitalization. Attorneys representing the tech giant called such a potential award “outlandish” and argued that it bore little relation to the actual scope of the states’ allegations.
Attorneys representing the states disputed Meta’s characterization, saying approximately $200 billion would have been a more plausible damages figure had they prevailed at trial. They accused Meta of promoting the $1.4 trillion estimate for “shock value.”
{Matzav.com}
