Meta agrees to landmark settlement over social media addiction cases

Filed 8h ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

Waltz (Tschikovsky Op. 40)

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Jacklee. · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Meta agreed to a settlement of up to $17.1 billion with 47 states, Washington D.C., and several territories over claims it deliberately engineered addictive features for young users while violating child privacy law.

The deal includes hard daily time caps, forced ‘productive pauses,’ overnight feed restrictions, and limits on beauty filters and like counts — none of which teens can disable themselves. Meta's Chief Legal Officer framed it as industry leadership and called on TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat to match the terms.

D.C.'s attorney general said Meta 'intentionally exploited kids for profit and then lied about it,' citing internal research the company allegedly contradicted in public statements.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

There is something clarifying about a company that spends years swearing the product is harmless and then agrees to switches teenagers are not allowed to touch. Note who is now demanding rivals adopt the same rules: the outfit that had to be sued into them, rebranding a penalty as visionary stewardship. If the terms are such a triumph of corporate conscience, one wonders why 47 attorneys general had to install them at gunpoint.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: Waltz (Tschikovsky Op. 40) · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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