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Meta reaches $17B settlement over social media harms to children

reuters.com

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Re: Meta reaches $17B settlement over social media harms to children

#191

Post by jjulius »

cimi_ wrote: post #175
jjulius wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Meta has warped society to think that life is meaningless without affirmation. No, Meta just amplified it to the nth degree. Humanity has always put an outsized emphases on such affirmation, whether it's reputation, status, belonging, approval, prestige, attractiveness, respectability, yadda yadda yadda. Consumer culture and mass media were already firmly entrenched and doing a damn good job of turning those into vi…

> No, Meta just amplified it to the nth degree. > [...] > Meta just put a big ol' bright spotlight on the worst aspects that *we* were already amplifying, and *perhaps* sped-run that amplification. No, pick one. If it's the former, it's essentially the same as saying they warped society. I agree that these traits are human and were there before social media, but amplifying, gamifying and exploiting addiction is repre…

>I agree that these traits are human and were there before social media, but amplifying, gamifying and exploiting addiction is reprehensible.

I never said that it wasn't reprehensible.

Re: Meta reaches $17B settlement over social media harms to children

#192

Post by close04 »

Barbing wrote: post #32
hugodan wrote: post #16

still feels like they got away easy for raping children's minds "Meta has long argued it could not have misled consumers about whether its services were addictive because "social media addiction" is not a recognized psychiatric condition." that's a nice escape hatch, considering that they are using all the tricks in the book (from online gambling, etc) and then some

>[irreparably damaging] children's minds I’d love for someone to get me into Mark Zuckerberg’s head on why he should keep doing what he’s doing.

Why do you need to be in his head? Something that applies to many powerful billionaires is that they believe their money and power make the superior human beings, entitled to shape the world as they see fit. Without that, they're nothing.

Re: Meta reaches $17B settlement over social media harms to children

#193

Post by tiahura »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #96
tiahura wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America defaults to free. That's very unsettling for those that prefer an authoritarian approach. Maybe all these state AGs knew there was a good chance of losing because the facts aren't as strong as the narrative?

> "America defaults to free. That's very unsettling for those that an authoritarian approach." The least insane general position is to always ask "Free for who to do what?" Freedom for you to try cocaine if you want? Ok, let's consider it, but let's have a serious discussion about public health and safety first because there are predictable public consequences to broader society. Freedom for someone to put cocaine in…

The general proposition is that the default for freedom is strongest regarding communication.

Re: Meta reaches $17B settlement over social media harms to children

#194

Post by fdgfikgfv »

Hugsbox wrote: post #187
ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #131

>Meta will impose daily usage limits and restrict nighttime usage by children who use Facebook and Instagram, and enhance measures to prevent children from accessing age-restricted content. Even if we assume children don't find a way around this, they will simply switch to a different social media app after their two hours are up, or switch to an app that doesn't have the two hour limit at all. This is clearly a rule…

I could see unregulated platforms blowing up, which would directly expose minors to far worse. Like imagine if they all flock to 4chan, or similar.

4chan doesn’t use tricks to get people addicted to their feed. Similarly, most platforms cannot hire the smartest people to build addictive algorithms. The danger is much lower.

Re: Meta reaches $17B settlement over social media harms to children

#195

Post by rpozarickij »

bvinc wrote: post #145
jcmoscon wrote: post #55

I think worse than social media nowadays is youtube shorts. That thing is so addictive to kids. I wish there was a way to delete shorts from youtube and have only long form videos available in the app.

I found a good solution. In the YouTube settings you can turn off your watch history. It’ll want you that your recommendations will not be as good. You can watch a YouTube short, but when you try to scroll to the next one, it’ll tell you that there is no next video because watch history is not enabled.

The Unhook extension on Firefox does a very good job of hiding various parts of YouTube (including Shorts) that you don't want to see/access.

I use the YouTube app very rarely, but out of curiosity I went to iOS YouTube app settings, and I wasn't expecting this, but apparently in Time Management you can set Short Feed limit to 0 and this hid shorts completely from my YouTube app home feed and I can't scroll to the next Short when I open one.

Re: Meta reaches $17B settlement over social media harms to children

#196

Post by Aunche »

giwook wrote: post #67
hugodan wrote: post #16

still feels like they got away easy for raping children's minds "Meta has long argued it could not have misled consumers about whether its services were addictive because "social media addiction" is not a recognized psychiatric condition." that's a nice escape hatch, considering that they are using all the tricks in the book (from online gambling, etc) and then some

Agreed, especially considering Meta made $60.46 billion in profit in 2025 alone.

This is a settlement between Meta and 48 states. Individuals can still sue them for harm, and one notable case had them pay 4.2 million. There are hundreds of thousands of claims pending. The federal government still has the ability to sue or fine Meta as well.

Re: Meta reaches $17B settlement over social media harms to children

#197

Post by datakan »

bearjaws wrote: post #158

Needs a 0 added, $160B feels fair. Mesothelioma was $35B in 90s money, so about 3x that today. Companies keep getting away with this "cost of doing business" fines, the justice department keeps failing at its duties. The fines either need to wipe out these companies to the point the share holders hold the leadership accountable or nothing will change.

Punishable by fine just means its legal for a price. Its disgusting

Re: Meta reaches $17B settlement over social media harms to children

#198

Post by mrguyorama »

yodsanklai wrote: post #97
jcmoscon wrote: post #55

I think worse than social media nowadays is youtube shorts. That thing is so addictive to kids. I wish there was a way to delete shorts from youtube and have only long form videos available in the app.

Exactly. And also a way to opt-out of the comment section. It's hard for me to resist looking at the comments, and sometimes commenting.

Nebula has many of the better creators from Youtube.

Nebula has no comments section. I find this to be a big indicator that it is built to enable creators to deliver good videos to their fans, rather than serving some other master.

Re: Meta reaches $17B settlement over social media harms to children

#199

Post by greggoB »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #131

>Meta will impose daily usage limits and restrict nighttime usage by children who use Facebook and Instagram, and enhance measures to prevent children from accessing age-restricted content. Even if we assume children don't find a way around this, they will simply switch to a different social media app after their two hours are up, or switch to an app that doesn't have the two hour limit at all. This is clearly a rule…

> Really I have no idea what this case accomplished besides being a tax on a successful company.

You forgot "evil" in your description of the company.

It is supposed to realign their incentives away from massively exploiting society for purely financial gain. There is ample evidence that Meta has gone out of its way to encourage the discussed issues, so clearly there was a problem with the incentive structure. Given all the lobbying they've done to prevent any passage of laws regulating their conduct, it's fallen to the courts to correct this (if, as other comments say, somewhat unsatisfactorily).

Re: Meta reaches $17B settlement over social media harms to children

#200

Post by alistairSH »

aeve890 wrote: post #165
snackbroken wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They "trust me" >Dumb fucks. Is an attitude he never grew out of.

>Is an attitude he never grew out of Why would he do that? Billions of users prove him right. I wouldn't change my views either if I'm right. It's society's fault for being dumb fucks. This creep it's just exploiting that.

creep

I think the word you're looking for is "sociopath."

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