You took them seriously before?
Why?
Their whole business revolves around exploitation and lying. And exploitation. And lying.

Read Careless People by Sarah from Meta/Facebook. She paints a picture where they are ran by people who are clearly sociopaths (obvious), but she mentions how none of them let their children use the very products they built/build. They go to Montessori schools and use nothing but wood toys from what I remember hearing.

It also shows what's at stake for them- what they have to lose. A billion dollar company doesn't write $2MM checks to teenagers on a whim. Someone did the math, and decided that whatever those kids had to say would cost Meta more than paying them all off.

I think it boils down to this- Meta makes money through engagement algorithms. They keep you scrolling and scrolling for hours, and the longer you scroll the more ads you see. And the more people are scrolling, the more people there are on the platform as a target audience so the more creators are on the platform.
But that comes at a cost. Not for Meta, but for the young impressionable people that get sucked into endless scrolling and believing that the fake lifestyles and appearance of 'influencers' are the way to be happy.
Meanwhile there is no downvote button. So the worst of the toxic crap gets seen by everybody and of course people react to it and call those people out but as far as Meta is concerned that's just more engagement on their platform.

Point is, they have to know this is happening. They aren't stupid. And if they know they are causing harm to kids and keep doing it anyway, then they are in big big big big big trouble. Either through court judgments or additional regulation.

And so if they can stop that from happening by writing a few million dollar checks, that's a bargain.

always bugged me that the 1st amendment is only applicable to a gov’s control of a person. not a person’s “selling” their silence to a corporation. i’m saying, take the money and still speak. but that amendment won’t protect you.

corporations need to be dissolved when they do shit like this.

Settlements are mutually beneficial in many cases, even corps take them, nobody wants to spent years fighting a legal battle with millions in lawyer fees and nobody wants to say they were in the wrong (unless they really think they're screwed or want the precedent).

Even if corps had to pay out the same or more than they would for losing they would frequently choose to settle because it prevents precedent they don't want from existing.

it's not like these companies care about laws anyways, so it only stands to reason they don't care about NDA's either

If they broke the NDA, Facebook's legal team would ruin their lives.

errare humanum est

The teen plaintiffs accused the companies of causing their depression, self-harm, eating disorders, and anxiety. According to the publication’s insider sources, Meta paid just two teens a combined $7 million to keep them quiet — a startling revelation that highlights how far these companies are willing to keep a highly sensitive subject out of the headlines.

They go on those platforms and get pushed down rabbit holes like anorexia glorifying content and before they know it their mental health is in the kind of state that a decade of therapy can't fix.

The platforms pay off the very few that sue while millions of others quietly suffer. Most of them not having the resources to take them to court anyway.

The teen plaintiffs accused the companies of causing their depression, self-harm, eating disorders, and anxiety.

Right? I should threaten to sue Meta and TikTok!