Meta to pay $17 billion over social media harms — but who’s really responsible?

Meta is set to pay a staggering $17 billion settlement after allegations that its social media platforms contributed to addiction and other harms among young users.

The agreement marks one of the largest corporate payouts tied to the growing backlash against Big Tech — and BlazeTV hosts Christopher Rufo and Jonathan “Lomez” Keeperman aren’t exactly sure how to feel about it.

“So we had a ruling this week,” Rufo says, “a settlement this week that Meta, which is the kind of dumb rebrand, like, middle-aged man identity crisis rebranding of Facebook, has settled to pay $17 billion.”

“Meta has been found guilty, or admitted to, harming children with its Facebook technology,” he explains.

“Essentially, they’re saying social media is addictive and harmful to kids in the same way that kids might be, you know, lighting up cigarettes,” he adds, before asking Lomez whether it’s good or bad.

“I’m of like two, three, four minds about this, honestly. On the one hand, it does strike me a little bit as a moral panic, I should say, which is like, OK, we’re going down this path of increased social media use. People are addicted to their phones,” Lomez says.

“There’s no ambiguity around that. That’s obvious and demonstrably the case. The question is, what harms are these doing? … And I think there are real harms,” he adds.

One of these “harms” is the “pervasive mass psychosis” that Lomez explains is “dominating our public life in almost every respect.”

“People getting herded into these sort of algorithmic valleys, you might call them, where they don’t see outside of it. Their information environment is completely one-sided, and this is deranging to people,” he says.

However, is the responsibility on those who have created social media, or those who use it?

“I think it’s a little bit of both,” he says. “And certainly when it comes to kids, I think kids are particularly susceptible to this stuff. And there ought to be a certain kind of responsibility that’s placed on the people creating these tools to be mindful of the ways in which kids in particular are susceptible, are able to be manipulated, where their sort of weaknesses are.”

“So this is all to say, when it comes to Meta here, is it reasonable for them to pay out $17 billion to these states? My answer is actually, yeah, it is,” he adds.

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