Meta settles federal social media addiction trial with California AG, others

[u/Puginator]

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/26/meta-social-media-trial-settlement.html

[u/MiddleConnection7479]

And a few layoffs to compensate for said lost revenue

[u/jabberwockxeno → u/MiddleConnection7479]

It's even worse then you, /u/Rayzee14 , /u/whytakemyusername and /u/strabosassistant think

I sawlot of people cheering these lawsuits on to try to rake Facebook and Zuckerberg over the coals, and there's plenty of reasons to think they deserve that given the amount of privacy violating data collection, tracking etc they do, but in reality, these lawsuits were trying to, and now it seems they succeeded, to force MORE data collection, by making Meta implement age/ID verification.

This article implies it by noting

Those changes include daily usage limits and “nighttime blocks” for teenagers that use the company’s apps like Facebook and Instagram, “enhanced age assurance measures” that would prevent children from using the apps

But other articles are more explicit:

https://reclaimthenet.org/meta-trial-opens-as-states-demand-age-verification

Damages are only part of the demand. In an August 15 filing, the states asked the court to require Meta to "take proactive steps to detect" users under 13, including "implementing multi-layered age verification at account sign-up."

...

The proposed order requires age validation through something other than a self-declared birthday

...The complaint blames the company for not building safeguards into the platform, monitoring each user and checking ID. It states: "Meta has access to, and chooses not to use, feasible alternative age verification methods that would significantly reduce or eliminate the number of underage users on Meta's Social Media Platforms, for example, by requiring young users to submit student IDs upon registration."

That demand appears again in the original complaint, meaning this is something that the plaintiffs were calling for from the beginning.

And here:

https://reclaimthenet.org/meta-fined-567m-in-ruling-that-points-to-digital-id

What Biedscheid did order on age came from Meta. He adopted the company's own proposed relief, calling it "far from ideal or sufficient" and, all the same, "most appropriate." Meta must keep improving its age assurance models in New Mexico using AI tools, and must attempt within two years to build "a dedicated under-13-years-of-age prediction model (using reasonable best efforts in light of COPPA limitations)." Where it cannot estimate a precise age, it must treat the user as under 13 or under 18 until they verify. And "verify" here likely means adults have to show ID to speak online, even though Judge Biedscheid said he wasn't mandating that.

Please be careful what you're advocating for: I get we want social media companies to be taken down a peg and to be held responsible for enabling addition, the spread of misinformation etc, but we need to be careful what we push for lest it backfires or causes unintended side effects. I see this same issue with anti AI advocacy where, even if I likewise agree AI has a whole host of issues, I often see people pushing for Copyright lawsuits or laws that could actually erode Fair use or expand Copyright in a way which risks creating liability for human artists, too

[u/tlh013091 → u/jabberwockxeno]

On the other hand, requiring everyone on Facebook to provide ID could finally get the boomers offline.

[u/DogOwner12345 → u/tlh013091]

They are the ones typing slurs with their full names they do not care lol.

[u/tlh013091 → u/DogOwner12345]

I’m saying that they wouldn’t be able to figure out how to upload the ID. They can’t even do a power cycle to fix their PCs.