Meta drops $23bn to settle lawsuit + Are Zelensky’s days numbered?

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (0:08)
Hi, Sacha Barbour Gatt with you. Welcome to The Briefing. Amidst the war in Ukraine, you'd be forgiven for thinking that everyone is united in the goal of pushing Russia out. But a conversation around who runs the country has started heating up this week after a very senior figure called for a wartime election.

**Ryan Heath** (0:25)
I think Ukrainians are very smart. They understand that they're in a difficult situation and so the normal rules don't apply. But that doesn't mean you can have martial law forever.

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (0:34)
A deep dive into the current political landscape in Ukraine and whether Volodymyr Zelensky's days are numbered is coming up in the second half of this episode. First, it's time for the headlines with Chris Spyrou on Thursday, the 27th of August.

**Chris Spyrou** (0:49)
Morning, Sach, we're starting overseas this morning, where Meta has agreed to pay $23 billion to settle a landmark case over teen social media addiction. Twenty-nine US states sued the tech giant back in 2023, with the trial getting underway last week, arguing that the company deliberately built features to get kids hooked and hid the harm from parents and the public. It was also being accused of quietly collecting data on kids under 13 without their parents knowing. The settlement, which also features a promise from Meta to add child safety features to Facebook and Instagram in the US, ends that trial early, right before boss Mark Zuckerberg was due to take to the stand.

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (1:26)
Of the states that sued, Virginia is set to pocket $353 million US dollars. That's one of the biggest payouts of its kind. Now during the trial, the head of Instagram defended the company's record on protecting children. But a former Meta engineer told the court the company kept running profit ahead of safety and was prioritizing how often and how long people scrolled over mental health concerns.

**Chris Spyrou** (1:51)
As part of the deal, Meta has promised daily time limits for kids, no notifications during school hours, tougher age checks and more controls to tackle bullying and content surrounding things like eating disorders and self-harm. The tech giant is this morning calling on its rivals TikTok and YouTube to follow its lead.
It's really interesting because this settlement amount, 23 billion Australian dollars, it's just a sliver of Meta's earnings. The company raked in more than 200 billion US dollars last year. So this 23 billion dollars settlement amount, while it's massive, like 23 billion dollars is huge, it's really, really nothing when it comes to what they make and how much money they can make.

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (2:33)
Staying overseas, 157 people have so far been confirmed dead and hundreds more are missing after devastating flash floods hit an area along the Nepal-Tibet border.
34 Australians are among those who haven't been accounted for after the powerful wave of mud and ice surged through the Himalayan border region, which is popular with tourists and locals alike because of its hiking. More than 400 tourists are missing, according to Nepal's Tourism Board, with the natural disaster coinciding with a local festival popular with Hindu pilgrims.

**Chris Spyrou** (3:06)
Towns and villages in the floods path have been destroyed, with communications in the area currently cut off. The Australian Embassy in Nepal has issued a joint statement with the embassies of Finland, France, Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, saying, we're deeply saddened and our thoughts are with all those affected by this disaster. It went on to urge people in affected areas to follow the guidance of local authorities and official safety advisories as the situation continues to evolve.

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (3:33)
Now there are fears further flooding could be possible and it's believed the event was triggered by a landslide and not an earthquake as it was first reported. And look, watching the footage of that wall of mud just slamming through, you know, some of the communities that were affected, oh my goodness, I've just never really seen anything like it. It kind of looked like a tsunami but bigger and more powerful.
So yeah, really, really awful to see that happening in an area that's going to be really hard to access as well, it's very mountainous, there's lots of, you know, tough terrain there and communication is limited. So yeah, our thoughts are with everyone who's there in Nepal and hopefully we get some more information about the Australians who are missing.

**Chris Spyrou** (4:16)
Back home now and Queensland will be allowed to go its own way when it comes to how it powers new data centres. The state was yesterday given the green light by the Prime Minister to run them on gas or coal despite Anthony Albanese previously wanting every state to use renewables. State and territory leaders met at National Cabinet to lock in national standards but didn't instead agreeing to keep working through it.