Where does this money go? To lawyers? Government? Won’t be going to the public
this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2026
344 points (99.7% liked)
Technology
87572 readers
3603 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
How about 45% Market Value?
Pump those numbers up, those are rookie numbers!
So they are going to stop... right!?
Who are they paying this money to? Who’s getting rich this time?
It's a start.
Like all anti-corporate settlements, it is ridiculously favorable to the abuser.
That’s too expensive for my taste. Is there a cheaper subscription option to abuse children?
To be paid out over 10 years, across almost every state. Just drops in an ocean.
Cost of doing business. Legal for a fee. Etc etc.
It is now "official" that meta harms children and yet hundreds of people keep upvoting meta content here on lemmy
Another fucking slap on the wrist. "The payment will be distributed in annual instalments over a 10-year period." It’s literally a rounding error for them. I assume this is the same lawsuit as the teen addiction one, where the states had asked for $1.4T in damages - in which case this would amount to literally 1% of the request and add insult to injury.
It's about 2% of their annual net revenue per year for ten years. Hardly much of a punishment.
I'm not a big fan of Steve Bannon, but I think what he said about political power is among the truest things ever said about modern politics. These big corporations, they're not so tough. The big law firms? They're not so tough. But the state can be tough. They're all gutless cowards at the end of the day that would crumble if even a fraction of the power available was displayed. If one truly takes power and exercises it, that would become apparent. Trying to play nice gets you nothing but lip service and pocket change.
My brain glitched and I had Steve Ballmer in mind (which I'm not a fan of either). Didn't really sound like him, confused me.
Also they're paying this money to the states, that's not going to any actual victims. As a corporation in America, you could literally go out and physically hurt a bunch of individual people, then the punishment is a payoff going to the state. Literally indistinguishable from just paying the justice system up front to look the other way.
There are plenty of people filing individual cases as well alleging liability under product liability law.
The sheer volume of those cases could possibly cause major financial issues for the company even if each one costs only a relatively small amount.
The short, general summary of these cases is that under US consumer protection law, the maker of a product is strictly liable for injuries and damages caused by the defective design of that product. An example in ordinary circumstances is that a farmer who uses an herbicide that contains a toxic chemical, and then later develops cancer as a result of exposure to that chemical, can claim compensation from the manufacturer under product liability law. This is what drove the chemical company Monsanto (maker of Roundup) into bankruptcy facing billions in product liability claims.
So a teenager who uses Facebook and then develops mental disorders as a result of that use, has a personal injury claim against Meta.
Even if each individual case is only worth around $20,000 to $50,000, Facebook has hundreds of millions of users in the US, of which possibly hundreds of thousands of people could have a valid claim under this legal theory. And many people could claim a great deal more in compensation. If a person uses Facebook, becomes addicted, gets depression as a result, and then commits suicide, that is potentially a wrongful death claim worth hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars.
Ambulance chasers to the rescue!
"up to" over 10 years, which means they'll pay 1.8B this year, a massive 3% of annual income, for now and find a way to get out of this before the decade is up
And no user will see a nickel
Where does the money go? Tax revenue? Is that how we’re making the rich pay their share? I didn’t violate any laws, but I still pay taxes and they should too — for the same reasons.
35% to the lawyers
15% to court, state, lawyer administrative costs
40% to Governor's cousin's LLC established since last Tuesday specializing in child online safety issues according to their website which goes on to read "would you like me to create promotional flyers and other materials in addition to the website"?
15% nobody can trace where it went - but did you know BOYS are playing GIRL sports?!
25% to a program that passively encourages risky online behavior
20% to pro-business tax breaks
That's right taxpayer, you're gonna need to chip in for the extra 50%.
Lawyers take their cut off the top.
I think you mean lawyers takes the entire cake, and leave the crumbs for the rest.
Cost of doing business
Meta maintained throughout the brief trial that it had worked extensively over the years to make its platforms safer for its youngest users, pouring resources into testing and research, and building new features.
No, you've made it a pain in the ass process to delete a facebook account. I've counted, you have to go through almost 5 prompts to finally delete an account. It's simpler on mobile, by about 2 extra steps shorter, but that indicates that no, you did not work extensively to make it safe if you can't make deleting easier.
The tech company will pay a maximum of $16.68bn (£12.26bn), according to court documents.
Meta denied wrongdoing in agreeing to settle.
Ok, buddy.
Exactly. That's the GDP of Morroco. You don't pay that kind of money if you're innocent
even if they are innocent (or think they could prove it anyways) they don't want the precedent and are willing to pay quite a bit to avoid it
Cost of doing business.
IANAL, but doesn't settlement mean they don't admit fault, they have no judgement to actually force changes, and the same case can't be brought again, aka, they get to keep harming kids, just have to cough up some tiny slice of profit and offer some lip service to doing better? Or, to rephrase, as long as the government gets a cut, they can keep abusing?
Settlements usually come with enforceable changes. If they continue the same practices, they can be sued again. In such a case, the penalties will likely be established ahead of time in the settlement and will be significantly harsher for the repeat offense.
Thats correct. So basically good for the company and the lawyers. Sometimes its the best option but in this case, just means they can do it again.
I worked for a security company that has stolen wages and has settled out of court 4 separate times. They will likely continue to do so.
the ultra rich are evil by default, they couldn't get to that level of wealth by caring about humanity.
Who gets the money? Is it enough to disincentives future abuses? Is the abuse still happening? Can they be trusted to not cause such abuses again?
Cost of doing business... if they aren't going to own up and make changes to prevent it in the future, what's the point?
Yeah, paying to make their problem go away rather than going to the end of trial and getting a bigger fine and more pesky regulation.
Don't let them settle! Slay the beast!
European: but they still will be judged. Right?
Gotta break a few eggs and such.
99% of kids we screwed up won't see a dime, but at least we can move on and keep screwing up another generation though. Will pass the cost of this onto the very families we are screwing up too.
Wrong link? It gives me an error
Op updated the link
still couch cushion money for this company. OK, maybe a couple couches.
Damn, they pulled the article. Sorry about that, nothing to see here (for now at least).
Edit: link updated.
In a normal company, needing to cough up seventeen billion dollars gets the CEO fired.