Meta is facing a crisis. The company behind Facebook and Instagram just agreed to pay $16.7 billion to settle a social media addiction case, and this might only be the beginning.
The massive settlement resolves claims from a major case alleging Meta designed Facebook and IG to addict children and fueled a mental health crisis that reached all corners of the nation.
In addition to shelling out $16.7 billion to California and 28 other states, Mark Zuckerberg’s company agreed to create “daily limits and blocks on nighttime use for teenage users” plus “enhanced age assurance measures to prevent children from accessing the platform, or age-restricted content available on the platform”. Meta is also required to create safeguards to help parents and guardians “protect their children online”.
The settlement, which still needs a judge’s approval, comes just one day after Instagram honcho Adam Mosseri testified in California. Meta denied the allegations but settled a case the company says could have ended up costing them over a trillion dollars in penalties. The settlement comes after Meta lost a string of cases. In a landmark lawsuit in New Mexico, a jury in March ordered Meta to pay $375 million for misleading consumers about safety. Earlier this month, the judge in the case ordered Meta to pay an additional $567 million. Also in March, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and Google liable for a woman’s anxiety and depression and ordered them to pay $6 million in damages.
Meta still faces thousands of lawsuits in federal and state courts, so this may not be the last time the company shells out big bucks to settle.
