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Meta agrees to pay up to $17.1bn to settle claims its platforms harm children (www.bbc.co.uk)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Additional link from another source

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/26/meta-kids-safety-features-settlement-01050418

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[–] 121 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Another fucking slap on the wrist. "The payment will be distributed in annual instalments over a 10-year period." It’s literally a rounding error for them. I assume this is the same lawsuit as the teen addiction one, where the states had asked for $1.4T in damages - in which case this would amount to literally 1% of the request and add insult to injury.

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  • [–] 38 points 2 months ago* (1 child)

    It's about 2% of their annual net revenue per year for ten years. Hardly much of a punishment.

    I'm not a big fan of Steve Bannon, but I think what he said about political power is among the truest things ever said about modern politics. These big corporations, they're not so tough. The big law firms? They're not so tough. But the state can be tough. They're all gutless cowards at the end of the day that would crumble if even a fraction of the power available was displayed. If one truly takes power and exercises it, that would become apparent. Trying to play nice gets you nothing but lip service and pocket change.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Also they're paying this money to the states, that's not going to any actual victims. As a corporation in America, you could literally go out and physically hurt a bunch of individual people, then the punishment is a payoff going to the state. Literally indistinguishable from just paying the justice system up front to look the other way.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

    There are plenty of people filing individual cases as well alleging liability under product liability law.

    The sheer volume of those cases could possibly cause major financial issues for the company even if each one costs only a relatively small amount.

    The short, general summary of these cases is that under US consumer protection law, the maker of a product is strictly liable for injuries and damages caused by the defective design of that product. An example in ordinary circumstances is that a farmer who uses an herbicide that contains a toxic chemical, and then later develops cancer as a result of exposure to that chemical, can claim compensation from the manufacturer under product liability law. This is what drove the chemical company Monsanto (maker of Roundup) into bankruptcy facing billions in product liability claims.

    So a teenager who uses Facebook and then develops mental disorders as a result of that use, has a personal injury claim against Meta.

    Even if each individual case is only worth around $20,000 to $50,000, Facebook has hundreds of millions of users in the US, of which possibly hundreds of thousands of people could have a valid claim under this legal theory. And many people could claim a great deal more in compensation. If a person uses Facebook, becomes addicted, gets depression as a result, and then commits suicide, that is potentially a wrongful death claim worth hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars.

    Ambulance chasers to the rescue!

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