How Meta’s Landmark Trial Will Reshape Social Media | Behind the Numbers

Marcus Johnson (0:00)

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Hey, gang, it's Friday, September 4th. Marisa, Beth, and listeners, welcome to Behind the Numbers, an EMARKETER Podcast made possible by Verve. I'm Marcus, and join me for today's conversation. We have living in New York, just for a little longer, newsletter analyst Marisa Jones.

Marisa Jones (0:50)

Hi, Marcus. Thank you for having me.

Marcus Johnson (0:51)

Of course. Thank you for being here. Living in Pennsylvania, senior health analyst, Beth Snyder Bulik.

Beth Snyder Bulik (0:57)

Hey, Marcus.

Marcus Johnson (0:58)

Hello. Today's fact.

Okay. X-rays were discovered by accident, like everything. Everything was by accident. The microwave, that was Percy Spencer, 1945, stood next to something, a magnetron tube and a chocolate bar in his pocket melted. He was like, oh, there's something to this. Dr. Spencer Silver, a chemist at 3M, was trying to make a super strong adhesive, and he ended up making the post-it note.

Beth Snyder Bulik (1:30)

But it's not that sticky.

It failed, right? The super adhesive failed post-it note.

Marcus Johnson (1:38)

Yeah, but did well by messing up. Alexander Fleming, penicillin, the first antibiotic in 1928

That was by accident. He went away, came back, whatever. X-rays, same thing. 1895, German scientist Wilhelm Röntgen, I think is how you pronounce it. 1895, he's from Prussia, now Germany, wrapped a vacuum tube in thick black cardboard to block out all light whilst running electricity through it. He noticed a chemical screen across the dark room began to glow, proving the tube was emitting an invisible type of ray. When he placed his hand in front of the tube, the rays passed through his skin but were blocked by his bones, projecting his skeletal outline on to the glowing screen. Because he didn't know what these mysterious rays were, he named them after the mathematical symbol for an unknown variable, X. Hence, X-rays.

Beth Snyder Bulik (2:33)

Interesting. They also were not very healthy for him, though. No.

Marcus Johnson (2:38)

He didn't do this too much. We've invented nothing on purpose, but I'm glad of it.

They helped.

Beth Snyder Bulik (2:46)

Absolutely.

Marcus Johnson (2:46)

Today's real topic, a landmark case that might have just changed social media.

OK. Meta settles for $18 billion in lawsuit brought by 29 states over social media harms to children, writes Amanda Silberling of TechCrunch. She explains that the lawsuit alleged the social media giant knowingly designed platforms like Instagram and Facebook to restrict kids despite knowing about the harms the platforms could pose to young users. States also claim to Meta knowingly collected data from children without parental knowledge violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, COPPA. Flate Montgomery and Dara Kerr of The Guardian note that as part of the settlement, Meta has agreed to establish safeguards for teenage users, including daily usage limits and blocks on nighttime use nationwide in the US. Lots of others will talk about them. Let's start with takeaways. Marisa, start with you. It's been reported as 17.1, some people say 18, it depends, but basically 17, 18 billion dollar settlement news. What was your biggest takeaway?

Marisa Jones (3:51)

My biggest takeaway is that this is kind of just foreshadowing what's to come for other platforms, which will get into me thinking that maybe this is not as big as a lot of people are making it out to be. But regardless, even if it's not huge for Meta, it is definitely a big turning point for, I think, social media more broadly, because if a company as big as Meta can be pushed to fundamentally change some of their features to protect young users, then to me that raises the risk for really any other platform to be pushed to reshape their products. We're seeing that TikTok, Snap and YouTube specifically are still in the crossfire of this whole social media and how it affects young children. There's a lot of debate and legislation going on. So I do think we are probably going to see changes come from them. I think we're going to see changes come from smaller platforms, big or small. But my takeaway is that this is kind of a turning point and more is to come.

Marcus Johnson (4:48)

To break that down, referencing the other social media platforms, the $18 billion settlements, it gets distributed to states over a 10-year period, but $5 billion of it is only paid out if Snap, YouTube and TikTok also settle with the states and agree to financial penalties and product changes like a one-hour daily time limit, night mode, age assurance measures. So you think that they will make these changes?