Meta to pay $16.68B to settle US states' claims it addicted children to social media

>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

So meta won.

The only thing I'm asking for is better control over my social media. Let me remove infinite scroll on Instagram and don't show me things I have explicitly followed on Facebook. And do this setting by default and a cigarette like warning pop-up when you try to enable the algorithms.

(I know you can do this with custom apps and I'm doing that but you have no clue how many non tech people beg me to share how and then cop out when they learn you have to download custom apk. Just add these functionalities as an default )

Meta pays smartphone makers to pre-install the Facebook app. And 3 more hidden services. Don't just remove the FB app, you need to remove all from FB because they will still continue to follow you.

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.

That cases should end with prison sentences, not financial settlements.

I remember, vaguely*, a British polemicist once tilting at the eco-populist demons-du-jour by saying “it’s not carrier bags that are the problem, it’s supermarkets, and it’s not SUVs destroying the plant, it’s cars.”

In that spirit, it’s not Facebook that’s crippling children’s brains, it is phones and the apps that run on them. OLEDs, Retina, 120+Hz, infinite scroll, algorithmic content, and 10h battery life are all just as much to blame as Instagram stories.

It’s like recognizing over-fishing is a crisis which needs to be tackled and then suing McDonalds because they sell a lot of Filets-o-Fish.

If we were to do something then we could hold our leaders accountable for regulating all of this, but there’s such an enormous conflict of interest there (namely that they’d be regulating the golden goose that gives them so much tax revenue and economic investment) that I long gave up hope they’d play it by the book.

* Rod Liddell? Giles Fraser? Nick Ferrari?

Meta has warped society to think that life is meaningless without affirmation.

No amount of money can fix that or punish them.

I think that sharing things can be wonderful, but monetizing that or adding Like counts to gamify it is very damaging to people. This idea that everyone should know better and take a ideological stand against some dumb app is ridiculous. Life can be hard at times, and these apps manipulated that.

Meta’s stock gained 32billion in value just today on the news. So it’s not even noticeable for them

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.

The WSJ reports: "As part of the settlement agreement, Meta will also make sweeping changes to its services, Facebook and Instagram, including implementing a default two-hour time limit on its apps for users under 18."

The question is of course if these limits are enforced and if they are shared across other services.