Meta Settlement Settles Nothing

Meta has agreed to pay up to $17 billion to settle claims that its products harmed America’s youth, an unsatisfying outcome to a worst-of-both-worlds process.

Worst of both worlds because it adopted a regulation-by-settlement approach in which the owner of Facebook and Instagram admitted no wrongdoing and successfully conditioned some of the settlement cash and policy changes it has agreed to make to curb pathological teen use on getting its competitors to adopt them as well, with Meta even going so far as to run ads on its own platforms “inviting” TikTok and YouTube to step up.

About the Author

Daniel Foster

Daniel Foster is a contributing editor at National Review.

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Meta has agreed to pay up to $17 billion to settle claims that its products harmed America’s youth, an unsatisfying outcome to a worst-of-both-worlds process.

Worst of both worlds because it adopted a regulation-by-settlement approach in which the owner of Facebook and Instagram admitted no wrongdoing and successfully conditioned some of the settlement cash and policy changes it has agreed to make to curb pathological teen use on getting its competitors to adopt them as well, with Meta even going so far as to run ads on its own platforms “inviting” TikTok and YouTube to step up.