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

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/meta-settles-with-us-states-over-social-media-harms-2026-08-26/
Pay 25% from your 2025 profit for harming children since at least 2019 and be able to continue doing so. Sounds like a loss for society and a win for Meta.
The other article says: "OAKLAND, California, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Meta Platforms (META.O), opens new tab will pay up to $18 billion over the next decade" [1]

So it's 1.8 billion per year and that's a lot less than 25%.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/meta-reaches-18-billion-set...

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The article outlines several changes Meta is having to implement that curbs the "and be able to continue doing so" argument a bit. That said, I wish these settlements included tobacco-esque requirements for ongoing funds to educate people. The tobacco settlement funds have been somewhat successful.
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> META Total Annual Revenue in 2025: $200.97 billion (up from $164.50 billion in 2024).

They literally don’t care.

And while they paid a reasonable amount of tax in 2025, that was a one off. They normally pay 3-5%.
Is anyone the slightest bit surprised? Our courts are no longer effective at bringing justice. They only have the law, and the law flagrantly favors the rich and their pet corporations.
Is anyone the slightest bit surprised? Our courts are no longer effective at bringing justice. They only have the law, and the law flagrantly favors the rich and their pet corporations.

This was a settlement. The court did not get a chance to issue a ruling or do any of the things you're pretending to be angry about.

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Yeah, they should at least pay it to the children.

For rich people, fines are just the price of doing things

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The US politicians class is corrupt and captured by special interests. These 17B were already as provisions on their balance sheet. They will spend four times this in the next data center....
Why 2019?

Facebook was already immensely popular a decade before that.

This is what the DC budget (Washington, as opposed to data center) is for.
Yeah but politicians get to claim this is a win. Let's be honest, that's the real reason the prosecution went for a deal this small.
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May depend on whether their profits come from less than or more than 25% of 'children-harming'.
I dunno, I kinda feel they have to pay the price for governments not having applicable regulations on this kinda stuff.

It's not reasonable to expect them to put up rules their competition don't have to abide by, and if the government has 0 rules regarding social media, what should they do?

They're not solely responsible for phone addiction but none of their competitors get sued the same...

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