“Hook, hold, harvest and hide” was how Megan O’Neill, a lawyer for the US state of California, characterised Meta’s business model in the trial that ended last week with an $18bn settlement, to be shared between the states and territories that brought the case. It was a clever way to describe the company’s approach to users’ attention and data. But the sharpness of her words was not matched by the deal. While the strengthening of child safety features is welcome, the tech giant once again batted off efforts to alter its products.
Meta’s decision to settle enabled it to avoid any admission of liability. It put a stop to the awkward questions being asked of witnesses including Adam Mosseri, Instagram’s CEO, and the damaging claims made by whistleblowers such as Arturo Béjar. This former Meta safety engineer told the court that his own daughter had been sent unsolicited photos of male genitals on Instagram.
The $18bn that Meta agreed to pay over 10 years, some of which is conditional on other platforms making similar changes, will hardly dent its profits (Meta plans to invest up to $145bn this year). More significant by far are its concessions in relation to child users. Safety features will become “opt-out” instead of “opt-in”, increasing the likelihood of their being switched on. Parents will be able to change the settings on young people’s accounts so that their feeds no longer show personalised, algorithmically driven content.
A new two-hour daily limit, blocks on use during the night and on notifications during school hours, backed up by compulsory age verification, improve on the current free-for-all. So does the commitment to disable obviously harmful “social comparison” features such as cosmetic surgery image filters.
But the package falls short of the restrictions on social media companies’ access to children that Australia, the UK, Malaysia, Indonesia and the EU have either imposed or are in the process of imposing (UK ministers have indicated that in areas where US rules may be stricter, they plan to follow suit). By accepting the terms that they did, while declining to raise the “digital age of consent” (at which accounts can be marketed to children) from 13, this deal’s negotiators left crucial aspects of Meta’s business, including its algorithms and addictive design features, largely untouched.
There are good reasons why children’s mental health is a central focus of online safety campaigning. But the harm caused by big tech’s monetisation of attention goes wider. The addictive, tribalist and narcissistic behaviours that platforms are widely recognised to promote have implications for societies as well as individuals.
One of many outstanding cases against Meta is being brought by Abrham Mearag, whose father was murdered in Ethiopia in 2021, after Facebook’s algorithm allegedly promoted posts calling for his killing. A US court blocked another case against the company regarding its role in the Rohingya genocide.
Measures designed to protect American children from anxiety, depression, unlawful data gathering and addiction are important. But they will not reduce the risk of social media being linked to murderous violence, or undermining democracy, elsewhere in the world. It is now for other courts, or foreign governments, to take the next steps in holding Meta and its peer companies to account for their role as overseers of the global digital commons.
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