Meta Reaches $18 Billion of Settlements Over Children's Social Media Addiction (yahoo.com)
- Reference: 0185193162
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/08/26/1632251/meta-reaches-18-billion-of-settlements-over-childrens-social-media-addiction
- Source link: https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/meta-reaches-18-billion-settlements-152347626.html
> The settlements include more than $17.6 billion of payments to 48 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands. Meta will also pay $459 million to resolve states' privacy claims related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where the British consulting firm collected personal data of millions of Facebook users. California would receive the highest payout, $2.2 billion, and New York and Texas would each receive more than $1 billion. Some of the payout is contingent on whether Alphabet's YouTube and ByteDance's TikTok impose similar protections for children. [...]
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> The settlement requires approval by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who oversaw the trial that began on August 18. Gonzalez Rogers still oversees thousands of lawsuits by individuals, school districts, and state and local governments accusing social media companies of harming children. Meta itself still faces thousands of lawsuits by individuals, school districts and municipalities. The next trials are slated for October in Los Angeles.
[1] https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/meta-reaches-18-billion-settlements-152347626.html
[2] https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/08/17/1912238/meta-faces-14-trillion-reckoning-in-latest-trial-over-social-media-addiction
Great deal (Score:5, Insightful)
So a net profit for Meta and they're off the hook.
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They know it’s true otherwise a much smaller payment would have this trouble dealt with.
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They saw the writing on the wall and did the smart thing. Settle. It sounds like a big number, until you put it in the context of the 1B LOSS they had in New Mexico. And I've not looked up the numbers, but I suspect Cal has way more than 2.2X the population of NM. And Cal is only getting 2.2 of the total. So they cut a deal and probably saved around half what could have easily happened.
They Got Off So Easy (Score:5, Insightful)
MASSIVE win for Meta. They faced as much as $1.4 TRILLION in liability and got off with just $17 billion. But more importantly for them it avoids really admitting wrongdoing and avoids having all their internal work come out. They had countless Meta employees who were going to have to testify about their goals to addict children and they avoided that.
They got a slap on the wrist and can largely continue doing what they were doing, rather than having to take any responsibility or paying for their actions.
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> They got a slap on the wrist and can largely continue doing what they were doing, rather than having to take any responsibility or paying for their actions.
With the caveat that there will probably be some sort of age verification coming so they can enforce their screen time limits on the underaged users. Though, we were kind of heading in that direction anyway with quite a few states becoming quite keen on the idea that adults should have to show ID to every damn site on the internet where one could possibly express an opinion or see some naughty bits.
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Papiere, bitte.
But... yes. This is something that they were already working on implementing, and was one of the key requirements from the states in the settlement.
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Yes but we all know there will be a "how to" avoid the verification and screen time limits. I could see some combo of VPN's, pictures of adults taped over the kids face, ... Meta is getting away with murder, again.
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I dont think they where ever in any real danger of having to pay $1.4 tril. They where perfectly capable of keeping this thing in the courts basically forever and win the whole thing by pure attrition. Thats what happens when your company is wealthy enough that laws don't really apply anymore.
But what DID worry them was regulatory and reputational danger. You can beat anything in court if you have inifinite lawyers, but that wont save you if the government just decides to take your toys away and all the cus
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I think you missed they have lost in NM. I imagine that loss told them which way the wind was blowing and while 18B means mark may not be able to afford another yacht, he can pick up another jet.
Too Little, Too Late... (Score:5, Insightful)
If Facebook/Meta gets away with this paltry settlement paid over 10 years. Then they and the rest of tech will continue to lie and abuse the public with the cognitive tricks and abuses. This settlement will just be shaved off the top as now the states will also PROFIT from tech bros abuses. And we'll back to a similar position in a few years.
Facebook used to be *supposedly* about connecting family and friends. Now it is just a cesspool of algorithmic manipulation of all its users.
Anything less than a complete shutdown is not acceptable.
As a bonus the "pervert glasses" may disappear unless some other tech company wants that taint hanging over them.
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> Facebook used to be *supposedly* about connecting family and friends.
According to Zuckerprick, you're a "dumb fuck" for believing that.
Did they do it to themselves? (Score:2)
Every tech company from now on will be much more careful before gushing out statements such as "You're exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology" --https://www.axios.com/2017/12/15/sean-parker-facebook-was-designed-to-exploit-human-vulnerability-1513306782
Nice. (Score:4, Funny)
That should mean a check for a pretty large sum coming to an affected kid near you. Thank you lawyers!
Nicotine for the internet (Score:3)
Just like tobacco companies operate in the "technically legal" sphere, the Facebooks, Reddits and X's of the world precalculate the amount of possible fines, and just run more ads to compensate for the losses. Simple bans don't work anymore thanks to distributed residential proxy botnets spoofing geolocation anywhere in the world and AI assisted ID generators.
We have to deal with the fact that a significant part of of society have addiction disorders and no matter what the substance, someone will get addicted to it. Even Slashdot provides addictive features like mod points and troll comments. It's unfortunately part of the human experience to want easy pleasure.
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And indeed, Slashdot has been deliberately shaped and reshaped to maximize engagement at the expense of users' emotional state, exactly like Feceboot. Notably, with the anonymous posting feature, which is wholly artificial. It is now literally and solely designed to enable trolling.
Nobody going to prison? (Score:5, Insightful)
Then nothing will change.
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CORRECT!!!
Nothing will change and Meta/Facebook won't even fulfill the terms of any agreement after a little time.
Because that is historically what they have done.
The $1.7 Trillion ask probably was not enough to families affected.
Books to read about Tech: [1] The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI by Cory Doctorow [substack.com] Link to a review.
"The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI is valuable. For Doctorow fans, it is another strong dose of clarity. For people who have not thought much about AI, it may
[1] https://aiedusimplified.substack.com/p/the-reverse-centaurs-guide-to-life
Blaming Social Media is Like Blaming Rock Music (Score:1)
Whatever is popular at the time is exactly what takes the blame, first it was rock music, then TV, then violent video games, and now its "social media." I quote it because social media is one of the most anti-social activities. Next it will be AI. Old prudes will always hate on whatever is new a popular and wasn't around when they were a kid and blame it for every bad thing that ever happened. Maybe people are just a little weird, sad, and depressed sometimes?
It's all in how your phrase it (Score:2)
Age verification checks for children is simply another phrase for mandatory ID checks for adults.
I'm pretty sure once Age Verification laws kick in, all of Social Media is going to become a ghost town in a hurry.
( and nothing of value wil be lost )
Well⦠(Score:2)
Eighteen billion wonâ(TM)t be enough to cover immeasurable suffering they caused. Iâ(TM)d start by liquidating the company AND Zackâ(TM)s personal fortune to try to cover it allâ¦
we got ripped off badly (Score:5, Insightful)
Ruin a couple generations of kids? No worries, $18B ought to cover that. Such bullshit.
This seems like just a start but all platforms need to stop the harmful practices.
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I realize parenting doesn't come with an instruction manual, but come on. If you've used Facebook it was pretty obvious that it wasn't appropriate for kids. So we're just gonna ignore that a bunch of parents gave their kids smartphones and tablets, didn't bother to set up the parental controls, and just said with a shrug "this is probably fine." ?
I get that Facebook made it appear that their product was appropriate for kids, but a stroll through your local grocery store will reveal a whole bunch of compani
Personal accountability.... (Score:2)
I have to agree. I'm not defending Facebooks' practices, but at the same time? It seems to me social media as a whole can become addictive, or promote bad ideas to kids or teens. You have to control this at the parental level ... not just depend on corporations to self-police it all.
So sure... slap them with large fines and use the money for good, where you can. I'm not opposed. But your kid or teen wouldn't be spending all day on social media if you controlled it as their parent. By the time they're old en
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Ya'll acting like parents suddenly stopped parenting. Tell me, how many of you are GenXers who got away with doing whatever you wanted? Latchky kids, out all afternoon doing whatever.. calling parents lying about where they were staying, etc..
Nothing new under the sun. Its true, parents should do a better job at parenting, but that's almost never been true, especially with city kids.
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> Tell me, how many of you are GenXers who got away with doing whatever you wanted?
Yeah, there were always some kids who smoked and figured out how to get ahold of alcohol, but that wasn't normalized. We didn't literally have parents going "Here's something intended for adults, have at it." in the way it seems almost every kid has a smartphone nowadays.
It's not just smart devices either. Orange County (Florida, not CA) recently had to ban e-bikes and e-scooters from their public schools because parents couldn't be arsed to figure out which ones met the legal requirements before buying t
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Right! That's exactly it. I was part of "Gen X" myself, and while I had friends who lived the whole "latchkey kid" lifestyle to the max? It really wasn't the norm to just be unsupervised all day or night.
I remember my folks both worked, but my mom went to working only part-time, early in the morning until around the lunch hour, when we were younger. She hired an older lady as a part-time nanny for us while she was gone. When we got older, mom was always home by the time school let out - so we barely knew s
Re: we got ripped off badly (Score:2)
Looks like we found the piece of shit parent.
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> If you took my post as an admission that I support kids on social media you'd be wrong. That does not change the fact that I won't take parenting advice from homosexuals with no kids.
Okay, let's say the quiet part out loud. You'd have liked nothing more than to have told your kids they can't bury their faces in Facebook/TikTok/Instagram/X, but they'd whine incessantly that you're the worst parent ever and that all their peers are allowed to have their doom scrolling and brain rot . So, because you can't take away their addiction without also forcing every other parent out their to align with your ideals regarding social media, you want the government to step in and do it for you.
Sound
maybe we're all pieces of shit (Score:2)
Why are we attacking regular folks just trying to raise their children in this increasingly complex and often dystopian-feeling world?
At what point did you decide that it was time to deflect attacks away from a trillion dollar industry and the billionaires that command it, and towards some random person on the Internet trying to raise his/her kids ?
Re:we got ripped off badly (Score:4, Informative)
> Parents are supposed to be the ones reading the labels
Where's the warning label for Facebook, Instagram, TikTok?
How about this:
-We use a team of psychologists and engineers to make this product as addictive as possible. We know this may cause developmental harm, anxiety, depression, or even thoughts of suicide. We know it may affect their schoolwork, their friendships, their healthy development. We don't care.
-If your child dies from using our product, we will keep their page available so those mourning their loss can reminisce about their time together. And also so we can sell more ads.
-We sell your child's data to the highest bidder, and that includes pedophiles.
-Your child may be harassed, bullied, insulted, or even told to kill themselves. We won't notify you or do anything substantive about it.
-Our product is accessible through every phone, tablet, computer, laptop, or other internet-connected devices, and there's no way you can logically block your child's access.
-Evil laugh here.
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> Where's the warning label for Facebook, Instagram, TikTok?
Usually there's a need for age appropriateness warning labels on things when a parent can't reasonably be expected to sit through an entire movie or play a video game to determine its age appropriateness. Most adults who are giving their kids access to a smart device, though, probably do have enough familiarity with Facebook to make their own determination as to whether or not they want their kids using it. It's also been possible for as long as these sites have existed, to do a Google search on professio
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And adults. Also the price they paid is a pittance.
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If only kids had parents or guardians instead of billion dollar tech companies babysitting the children.
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Ruin them? How? By feeding them more of the stuff they like so real life is boring now? By showing them stuff they would earlier have gotten from goatse or rottencom? By showing them the rotten political underbelly of society that in old times would have agitated completely without their knowledge? Why is this "addiction" worse than what World of Warcraft or 24 hour news channels did?
Welcome to the 21st century (Score:2)
I'm waiting for Amazon Day to buy pitchforks and torches.