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Meta has settled its court case over child harm after just 5 days of testimony. The $18bn is split between 29 US states that brought the case.
$18bn seems like a drop in the ocean compared to their $1.45Trillion market value. But their actual annual operating profit is $60bn so it's a sizeable chunk out of that.
So ... what happens next? Income from US accounts make up about a third of Meta's revenue (and so they've basically turned over all their US profit for the year)
Does anything stop Rest-of-the-world (and presumably the other US states) from claiming their compo too?
Supplementary question .... where does all the money from these settlements go?
Most importantly will they have to changed anything or just pay the cash and carry on
Were they found guilty and now need to put many changes in place or have they made the payment and can carry on doing what they are doing?
Most importantly will they have to changed anything or just pay the cash and carry on
I doubt they will change because they can afford to pay the cash and continue as normal.
Well, penalty will just become part of their costing structure I guess.
Most importantly will they have to changed anything or just pay the cash and carry on
Were they found guilty and now need to put many changes in place or have they made the payment and can carry on doing what they are doing?
They settled (and had the settlement accepted) early on the basis that they would then impliement necessary changes more quickly than if the case had run its full course. In doing so they also avoided having to pay a higher fine.
penalty will just become part of their costing structure I guess.
the British Water Industry model 🙂
Doubt all you want. From the guardian (which took literally 5s to find):
Rob Bonta, the attorney general for California, said in a statement. “Meta has agreed to make massive transformations that will reduce the risk of harm from its platforms – and will do it within months.”
Bonta said those changes included time limits, stopping notifications during school, a block on the app during critical overnight hours, bans on plastic surgery filters and more.
Bonta said those changes included time limits, stopping notifications during school, a block on the app during critical overnight hours, bans on plastic surgery filters and more.
Now they just need to put the same kind of safety measures in place for the the over 60s 🙂
At last someone is starting to getting a grip on the Tech monsters.
I hope so, but I strongly suspect that this will be just the price of doing business the way they do. They settled because they were probably going to lose, so it made business sense to do so. No admission of guilt this way, no culpability and, if I read it right, 30% of that fine is dependent on YouTube and Tiktok doing the same thing. And it is over ten years (paying the fine), so it's effectively fsck all to them.
On one hand this is a large amount of money, possibly even for Meta, and the changes they've promised are all positive.
On the other hand, I'd really like enough of these to go to trial that they get sued out of existence, but that's probably wishful thinking.
It may be the start of something perhaps. This particular case was about failing to protect children from harmful content. But the harmful content is there for everyone. The problem generally is the social media companies aren't in control of there platforms. I don't think they particularly want them to be harmful - its not the platforms themselves that create the content - but they also don't want to create the friction for users that moderating and managing the content would require. For no real reason probably than a tragedy of the commons - that they'd loose users to other less diligent platforms if safeguarding in anyway interrupted the user experience.
Their lack of diligence is part laziness and part cheapskate but also part 'the other guys are probably lazier and cheaper'
I don't know how many users / traffic you'd need to lose to other platforms for an $18bn to be worth paying though
Would social media / social network users accept measures those platforms would need to take to actually reduce those harms though. In actions like this and the various child social media bans around the world all thats really happened is children have been been restricted in their activities so that the rest of us can carry on without interruption.
I'm sort of hoping that all Meta's effort to comply with this case prove unworkable so that instead they have to do the real work of making the services they provide be something everyone can use safely instead. As at present the harms are there for everyone and they don't care how old you are.
I doubt they will change because they can afford to pay the cash and continue as normal.
Well, penalty will just become part of their costing structure I guess.
Yep, cost of doing business. I imagine they will do the minimum required to technically abide by whatever agreement they signed but, in practice, just keep on doing that they were doing.
I can't help thinking that the behaviour of the tech-bro's now is the result of their no consequence upbringings. It's like everything's a game to them and they just try to get away with as much as they can.
It's somewhat depressing that the result of a previous generation of parents not discipling their kids is further generations of kids that are ignored by theirs while they disappear into their devices.
I can't help thinking that the behaviour of the tech-bro's now is the result of their no consequence upbringings. It's like everything's a game to them and they just try to get away with as much as they can.
It's somewhat depressing that the result of a previous generation of parents not discipling their kids is further generations of kids that are ignored by theirs while they disappear into their devices.
I can't help thinking that the behaviour of the tech-bro's now is the result of their no consequence upbringings. It's like everything's a game to them and they just try to get away with as much as they can.
It's somewhat depressing that the result of a previous generation of parents not discipling their kids is further generations of kids that are ignored by theirs while they disappear into their devices.
There's already a whistleblower reported on the news today saying planned changes won't make children safer online.
Its a fair point made my Meta that this needs to apply to all other platforms. And without it being global, will a VPN circumvent national controls?
I can't see the changes making much difference. Not being able to use between midnight and 6 am for a child is irrelevant and the restriction to 2 hours use means damage can still be done within that 2 hours every day if they don't make the platform safe for that 2 hours, which they won't.
All US States and all countries should be claiming the same case as they will all have the same case. Those $18bns will soon start adding up.
And without it being global, will a VPN circumvent national controls?
The simple fix is to make it global... surely kids elsewhere shouldn't be fed harmful content and deliberately drawn into addiction? Yes, it means assuming all users need the protections 'till proof of age is sorted... which will outrage some who think the internet should have no guard rails... but it's all in Meta's power to do this.
There's pretty strong evidence they KNOW what is harmful and direct users to it
I recently read Careless People and it pretty straightforwardly says that Meta would prioritise engagement over anything else, which we all know but it seems to be remarkably difficult to do anything about it (the current settlement notwithstanding).
I doubt they will change because they can afford to pay the cash and continue as normal.
the settlement includes new provision to include things like an end to the infinite scroll, time limits, changes to algorithm's methods of data collection, safety functions, night-time and school modes and so on. There's also an independent auditor to be set up. It's a 130 page document drawn up by the states that launched the action. It doesn't go far enough IMO, but its a start
It's all moot as MySpace is coming back to save us all.
I hope so, but I strongly suspect that this will be just the price of doing business the way they do. They settled because they were probably going to lose, so it made business sense to do so. No admission of guilt this way, no culpability and, if I read it right, 30% of that fine is dependent on YouTube and Tiktok doing the same thing. And it is over ten years (paying the fine), so it's effectively fsck all to them.
As others have said. This is just a cost of doing business. It's the cheapest solution that minimises scrutiny and means they can carry on as before because there is no judgement against them. I take their promises and being reliable and as likely to be full filled with as much salt as a Daily Mail article
"We are going to act immediately and implement fixes within months" is another way of saying "we were absolutely aware of the problem and could have already done this and chose not to" of course.
There <is> a fundamental problem with the engagement/reward process, since inevitably negative stuff, anger and lies will generate more engagement. Social media in general is essentially designed to enshittify itself by rewarding the worst content and sidelining the best. Watching the sad process of youtube channels getting big enough to be noticed and then working out how to serve the algorithms and then making their own product worse really gets me down sometimes...
It's like if we bought food based on how awful it tastes it is because going "mmm nice" is less noisy than "OMG THIS IS DISGUSTING" and volume of response is the only criteria that counts.
Whilst it sounds like a lot of money it’s apparently something like two weeks of revenue. And I believe the amount is payable over a decade so I’m not sharing too much sympathy for them.
Social media in general is essentially designed to enshittify itself by rewarding the worst content and sidelining the best.
It wasn't always this way. And it didn't need to be this way. When people followed recommendations from their contacts and friends, the users were in control. Genuine networks of people. Once we were being served content algorithmically by the owners of the networks instead, they became just another supplier/channel of media and the owners were in charge... while maintaining the illusion of still offering a peer to peer service by keeping a bit of that contact going.
