Meta Agrees to Historic $18B Settlement & NYC Has More Tech Workers Than SF

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
Are you sucking wind from trying to keep up with AI and its impact? Take a breather and tune in to The Intelligence Shift, Morning Brew's new podcast with PWC. It bridges the gap between big picture AI concepts and what it actually means in practice. Host Dan Priest is joined by expert guests to discuss AI's role in sports, music, HR and more. Listen to The Intelligence Shift wherever you get your podcasts.

**Neal Freyman** (0:24)
Good Morning Brew Daily show. I'm Neal Freyman.

**Toby Howell** (0:27)
And I'm Toby Howell.

**Neal Freyman** (0:28)
Today, Meta settles for $18 billion in a landmark moment for social media.

**Toby Howell** (0:33)
Then Bill Gates is sounding one of the loudest alarms yet when it comes to AI.
It's Thursday, August 27th. Let's ride.

**Neal Freyman** (0:50)
If you missed the solar eclipse in Europe a couple of weeks ago, tonight brings the next best thing, a lunar eclipse. Beginning at 9:23 p.m. Eastern, the earth will travel between the sun and the moon, casting a shadow on the moon's surface, covering 96.2% of it at the peak. Should be a pretty cool sight because the earth's shadow on the moon will make it appear reddish-orange in what's been dubbed a blood moon. Best part is it'll be visible from the continental US if the skies cooperate. Don't skip your afternoon coffee, though, because the eclipse will heat up around 10.3 and peak at 12:12 a.m. Neal, I've been saying this.

**Toby Howell** (1:27)
There are more eclipses this year than ever before. It seems like every single week, there's some celestial body passing in front of another one. Am I crazy or are there more this year?

**Neal Freyman** (1:37)
You're not crazy. There are, it's not necessarily more this year, but the reason that there is two in the past couple of weeks is because solar and lunar eclipses do come in pairs. There's usually one eclipse and then two weeks later when the sun or when the moon goes from a new moon to a full moon, we get another eclipse. And there's just fortuitous math, the way these celestial bodies appear in the sky because of size and distance. It's pretty crazy the way this works out. The sun is 400 times farther away from Earth than the moon is, and the sun is also 400 times bigger than the moon. So it cancels out, you know, you do your second grade math there and we look, they look, these orbs look the same size in the night sky.

**Toby Howell** (2:17)
Of course, you knew the actual answer to why there's been more. Do you know why it turns red though? No, it's not that exciting, but sunlight's obviously made up of a spectrum of colors and our atmosphere actually absorbs most of the yellow and blue parts of the spectrum. The only one that skirts by is the red part, which is why it gives the moon a blood red hue. There you go.
And now a word from our sponsor, American Express. Neil, I am all go.

**Neal Freyman** (2:40)
You're what?

**Toby Howell** (2:41)
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**Neal Freyman** (2:53)
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**Toby Howell** (3:02)
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Facing potentially $200 billion in damages from a sprawling lawsuit, Meta decided it was in a settling mood. Just over a week into the trial, the social media giant reached a landmark settlement with 48 states agreeing to pay up to $18 billion in penalties over 10 years and make key changes to Facebook and Instagram to make them safer places for kids. It's among corporate America's largest settlements ever. Attorneys general hailed the deal as a historic win. DC's AG Brian Schwalb called it a quote, monumental public health victory for young people, saying the safety features Meta is required to install will fundamentally and immediately change how young people use Instagram and Facebook. In a statement, Meta called the settlement an important step that aims to set a new industry standard for kids' safety on the Internet. We want to get this right for parents and teens, the company wrote. But the fact that Meta came to the negotiating table instead of seeing the trial out shows how fraught its predicament is. This year has brought a wave of trials. Many have compared to Big Tech's big tobacco moment, where mounting backlash against social media has resulted in significant legal peril for major platforms like Meta. This case in California was seen as the climax, acme pinnacle of the social media reckoning. Dozens of states had come together to accuse Meta of hooking kids onto its apps using addictive design features, then misleading the public about the harms. They were seeking about $200 billion in damages, and ultimately ended up with 18 of that. Toby, for almost a decade, we've been wondering whether the pushback against Big Tech would amount to any material consequences or reforms. That was finally answered yesterday.