Meta 就青少年成瘾诉讼达成 180 亿美元和解

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As we turn back to the big news out of Silicon Valley tonight, Meta reaching a huge settlement worth up to roughly $18 billion, including fees, in a landmark case brought by states that accuse the company of designing Facebook and Instagram to intentionally hook young users. The agreement requires Meta to make major changes to how its platforms operate for children and teens. We spoke to Utah Governor Spencer Cox about the settlement a short time ago.

We want to start, of course, with this meta settlement, which is a big deal for our audience. It's a big deal for parents and families and a big deal for investors. Governor, uh, up to $18 billion is the headline. We had to note Meta pulled revenue of more than $60 billion in the last quarter and there's been a thought in some quarters today that this is a rounding error essentially for a massive company. Did Meta get off easy?

Well, in some ways yes and and in other ways no. Um look, I I was the one of the lone kind of dissenters when it came to the number. I thought the number should have been much much higher. Uh but uh but what we got on the other end was something that we probably could not have gotten as much of in court and and that is the uh the equitable relief. That is making sure that now they they have to create these kids accounts that they put parents back in charge that we're changing the algorithm that we're we're turning these things these platforms off at night that we're having healthy pauses in there.

These were all really important things that we've been pushing for. Utah was the the first state uh to try to hold these companies accountable. um 3 4 years ago and I'm I'm really proud that we got that far.

So, Governor, would you say this is more about the message that this sends more so than the money? And if you could drill in a little bit more on the money, how does Utah plan to allocate this? I know you mentioned one example there, but what else are you looking for?

Yeah. Yeah. So, I I want to say it's not not the message as much as I we we got actual changes to the platforms and that that piece is really important. That piece matters. This is going to protect kids going forward. Uh, by the way, your kids should not be on these platforms at all. So, so get them off, but if they are on, this is going to make them safer. Um, we we want to use the money uh to to mitigate the harms that have been caused.

Look, um, Meta knew, I mean, the these guys, they knew what they were doing. They had their own research that showed that this was causing significant harm, increases in uh in in suicide ideiation, um, increases in self harm, anxiety, and depression, especially with young women. And they buried that research and moved forward anyway. So, we need to use this money to help again mitigate those harms, to help kids who who are struggling.

And it's not enough to just get off social media. It's what do we do next? We need to provide more opportunities for kids in the real world, to get outside, uh to to enjoy each other, to enjoy the real world again. And uh and that's what we're going to use the money for.

Well, as a father of a 19-year-old, I'm breathing fresh air just hearing you say that, Governor. So, tell us how this works. These new guard rails are important. How do you enforce restrictions, for instance, on how much time kids can scroll when they're more clever than we are about getting around some of these parameters, parental controls, using other devices or other loginins? I'm sure you thought this through.

Yeah, look, there there's no foolproof way to to do this. We we know that the kids are very smart, but this is this is huge because it requires the company for the first time to actually start age gating, right? So um so so they they have to know how how old the person is. It it puts parents in charge. The defaults now on these platforms are going to be to protect our our kids. And now parents can can override those if they want.

If they want their kid on at 3:00 in the morning, the the parent can change that and and make it happen. I I I I don't pretend that we're going to catch um every single kid in this, but but it it raises the bar significantly. We're suing other platforms as well. In fact, there's a kicker in in this deal that um that that significantly raises the the monetary settlement if other platforms uh join in. And so, we're we're going after those platforms as well.

And if we can get everybody moving this direction, it's just going to help help lift everyone. It's going to help kids. It's going to help parents and uh and make uh make make our country a better place. So that's actually what I was going to ask next, Governor, because Meta is calling on those other platforms, their peers, including Tik Tok and YouTube to confirm with this settlement, saying that it's not really going to work unless everybody gets on board.

So what happens next? And does this really have teeth if those other platforms don't abide as well?

Well, I mean, look, it certainly has teeth with Facebook and and Instagram and and the companies that are owned by by Meta. Uh, Meta didn't settle this out of the goodness of their hearts. And this is what is frustrating. Like they could have done this three years ago. They could have done this 10 years ago. They could have not killed our kids in the beginning. That would be great. Um, but but they did. And so here here we are.

Um, what this does is the reason they were they were settling is because they were losing badly in these court cases. I mean, in New Mexico, they got rolled in in a big way. I was actually excited for the case to move forward this fall in in in Utah. And uh, they they knew they were losing. There were four other cases that were just starting moving forward in Tennessee, um California, other places, and they knew they were in trouble.

They had the whistleblowers. Um they they the harms are are so clear. And and these other companies are feeling that, too. They know that the court cases weren't going well. They don't want to get on the stand and have to testify about how how much harm they've done to kids. So, I I I think I hope that this will be a driver to get everyone to the table. We passed bills requiring this kind of stuff years ago. They sued us to prevent that from happening.

We're still litigating those. Um the the companies don't want this bad PR and and hopefully, you know, that that this will be a positive for Meta as people see that they can actually do something and that they actually care about kids instead of pretending to care about kids.

Well, and they missed a lot of bad PR potentially uh in not having Mark Zuckerberg testify in this case based on this settlement. Governor, I'd like to ask you about the issue of data center because it ties into everything that we're talking about here eventually. And while you were out ahead when it comes to clamping down on sites uh like Facebook and Instagram, you are also ahead uh in the race to house data centers in your state.

We talked about some of the projects last time you were with us and you've brought forth a number of ideas about alternative energy to power them. Now that this has become such a visceral campaign issue, are you surprised to see this uh splitting both ways with Democrats and Republicans looking to control data centers? And are you looking for new rules of the road in Utah?

Yeah, you're right. I mean, this has been fascinating. I mean, it's been a long time since we've seen kind of a backlash to to something this this big. Um, I I do think it goes back to social media in some ways. I look, data centers, there's a lot of misinformation about data centers. I I'm pretty neutral on data centers. Not not a huge fan. Um but but they they are important. They're important to our our modern world in in very big ways.

But but I do think that they are the physical embodim

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