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here’s to a better Meta (supposedly)
Mark Zuckerberg’s tech firm Meta – the owners of Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook – has agreed on an $18 billion USD settlement to resolve claims that its platforms actively harmed children. Was it right to do so?
Meta, the tech company that owns Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook, has agreed to an $18 billion USD settlement with US states and territories, resolving claims that its platforms have harmed children.
The move effectively shuts down a sprawling lawsuit against the company that had just gotten underway in California, with 29 states accusing Meta of deliberately making its platforms addictive while disregarding child-privacy laws. Meta continues to deny any wrongdoing, and all terms still need to be approved by a judge before taking effect.
While the settlement is considerably smaller than the potential financial exposure Meta faced, it is now required to make big, sweeping changes to its social media platforms to limit any potential harm to children. This includes a two-hour daily limit, restricted notifications during school hours, hiding like counts and other popularity metrics for younger users, tighter parental controls, stronger age verification systems, and new rules around potentially harmful content.
It’s important to note here that the lawsuit against Meta argued that the company knew it was developing features that encouraged compulsive use and could cause issues for children. It alleges that despite full knowledge of the potential harm, Meta continued to design tools to be addictive, intensely engaging, and rewarding. It also cites 2021 data that shows Meta knew 400,000 underage Instagram users were active, with a huge backlog of additional suspicious accounts.
“While the settlement is considerably smaller than the potential financial exposure Meta faced, it is now required to make big, sweeping changes to its social media platforms to limit any potential harm to children.”
This becomes particularly damning when looking at ‘Instagram Kids,’ the proposed variant to Meta’s main platform that was announced in 2021. It was intended to be an alternative for children who were logging into Instagram and lying about their age, but faced significant backlash from the public, who cited concerns about safety and addiction issues. The project was ultimately scrapped.
It’s unsurprising, then, that the agreement to introduce these new restrictions has been largely welcomed by many officials and experts.
Publications are describing it as a ‘big tobacco moment’ for social media, comparing the new limits to the landmark changes to cigarette advertisements in the 1990s. It suggests that Gen Alpha and younger will have a markedly different experience with online connectivity compared to millennials and Gen Z, who largely had unmoderated, unrestricted access for their entire adolescence. We now have a widely accepted attitude that online platforms can be harmful without due restraint – a significant change from even a decade ago.
California Attorney General (AG) Rob Bonta named it a ‘watershed’ moment, while Georgia AG Chris Carr referred to the settlement as a ‘monumental victory,’ expressing that it could fundamentally change how the industry designs its products for children. Parents of those affected by social media have described it as ‘vindication’ and said it could have made a difference if these rules had existed earlier.
Of course, not everyone is happy, and Meta itself has a counterargument amidst all the blame.
It argues that Gen Z’s mental health is a complex societal problem that can’t be solely attributed to any single platform, most notably Instagram. The company points out that teenagers use TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat, Discord, and other messaging apps daily – they are always in touch and sharing content, well beyond the realms of Meta’s influence.
Then there is the creeping feeling of state intervention. Why do governments have the authority to decide how long young people can use social media for, when they largely have less understanding of how it works? Critics argue that this is the beginning of regulating our free time, and an erosion of civil liberties. Where should the line be drawn? Is a three-hour film considered addictive? Should we ban Lord Of The Rings? At what point is problematic consumption the fault of the individual rather than a corporation? The issue is nuanced, and there is a potential pitfall in introducing a sweeping restriction with little consideration for each user’s experience.
What’s more, enforcing these rules creates an uncomfortable privacy trade-off. Age-assurance systems require platforms to establish how old their users are, potentially requiring people to hand over more personal information or use technologies capable of estimating their age. Critics fear that this could weaken online anonymity and create new risks around data breaches and government access to personal information.
This whole saga follows a string of controversies for Meta (as seems to be the case every year or so, at this point) that have put its privacy policies under scrutiny. Governments in the UK and Australia, as well as some in Europe, had begun to roll out social media limits for young people well before this ruling, restricting access at certain times and preventing them from holding accounts on most platforms.
“Why do governments have the authority to decide how long young people can use social media for, when they largely have less understanding of their use?”
Given all these dramas, plus many more in the past decade that we won’t go into here, it’s hard to trust Meta in any capacity. It has shown repeatedly that it cares very little for the privacy or wellbeing of its customers, and always seems unwilling to co-operate until it is legally forced to do so.
What’s clear is that something needs to change. Gen Z’s unhealthy relationship with social media and worsening mental health have emerged alongside fifteen years of industry experimentation, when platforms were allowed to evolve faster than regulations could keep up with. The next generation needs better rules, but it must be done with nuance and care. Based on its previous legal issues, it’s unlikely that Meta can move the needle in a way that champions the health of its consumer base.
As of right now, it’s unclear who can definitively serve as an authority over social media, but this settlement at least nudges things in a more certain direction and limits Meta’s ability to act as it wishes.
See also:
- Does ‘nickel-and-diming’ make Gen Z stingy?
- Studying the social media spectacle of a solar eclipse
- Why is Gen Z fixated on…frozen yoghurt?
