Meta's $17 Billion Settlement is a Bad Deal for Teens and All Social Media Users
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/09/metas-17-billion-settlement-bad-deal-teens-and-all-social-media-users
- The Settlement embeds age assurance technology and age-gates into Meta’s social media products and requires all users—minors and adults—to undergo a rights-threatening age estimation process
- The Settlement places severe restrictions on Teens that can only be modified by the Teens’ parents and only then in exchange for giving their parents a ton of information about their online community and usage;
- The Settlement seems to empower the attorneys general to enforce Meta’s content restriction on “age inappropriate content,” categories that Meta itself has had trouble administering without excluding information about sexuality, sexual and reproductive healthcare, and abortion medication;
- The Settlement actually requires Meta to collect, analyze, and retain more information about its Teen users—when the pressure should have been on Meta to diminish its surveillance capitalism.
267 points · 15 comments · view on lemmy.world
15 Comments
panda_abyss@lemmy.ca · 26 pts · 13d
Meta's
$17 Billion Settlement is aBadDealfor Teens and All Social Media Usersedgemaster72@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 13d
But wait, we can go simpler!
Meta’s
$17 Billion Settlement is aBadDealforTeens andAllSocial Media UsersMaggiWuerze@feddit.org · 6 pts · 12d
Meta’s
$17 Billion Settlement is aBadDeal for Teens and All Social Media UsersCosmoNova@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 13d
I quit social media for the most part a while ago. It was a slow process of being increasingly dissatisfied with my experience. All of this stuff just makes me not want to come back.
Kissaki@feddit.org · 5 pts · 13d
Do you consider Lemmy not to be social media? I guess that's the for the most part, rather than time used?
fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net · 3 pts · 13d
Social media is a horribly unspecific term
Palerider@feddit.uk · 2 pts · 13d
For me, it's not so much that it's social media but more it doesn't have an agenda. No algorithms pushing certain posts up on my feed.
myyass@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 13d
I think the thought was anonymity and not posting personal information.
ltxrtquq@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 13d
It's kind of like how a forum isn't usually considered social media.
Cytobit@piefed.social · 1 pts · 13d
A forum is considered social media.
myyass@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 13d
Yeah I agree.
SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org · 10 pts · 13d
Just stop using it. Could be simpler
douglasg14b@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 13d
Could be simpler, yep.
If it was that straightforward then reality would be different huh?
yucandu@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 13d
All I see on Facebook these days is Russian propaganda anyway.
PierceTheBubble@lemmy.ml · 5 pts · 13d
The parallels with the EU's Digital Services Act are just remarkable, both in terms of timing and substance (down to the phrasing). But on the bright side, when Facebook prompted my mom to choose between a subscription, and her being the product, it first-handedly confronted her with the platform's policies. And knowing that she believed a selfie video to be disproportionate, even in context of changing a banking app setting, she will be even more reluctant to submit it to a social media platform; especially since her joy in using the platform has also decreased over time. So perhaps this might be yet another friction point, that could lead users to stop using the platform altogether. But the sad reality is that this won't be restricted to Facebook, but also extend to platforms that are a net-positive to society.