Utah Governor Spencer Cox Talks Meta Settlement

**Spencer Cox** (0:02)
Bloomberg Audio Studios.

**Joe Mathieu** (0:04)
Podcasts, radio, news. As we turn back to the big news out of Silicon Valley tonight, Meta reaching a huge settlement worth up to roughly $18 billion, including fees, in a landmark case, brought by states that accuse the company of designing Facebook and Instagram to intentionally hook young users. The agreement requires Meta to make major changes to how its platforms operate for children and teens. We spoke to Utah Governor Spencer Cox about the settlement a short time ago.
We want to start, of course, with this Meta settlement, which is a big deal for our audience. It's a big deal for parents and families, and a big deal for investors, Governor. Up to $18 billion is the headline. We had to note, Meta pulled revenue of more than $60 billion in the last quarter. And there's been a thought in some quarters today that this is a rounding error, essentially, for a massive company. Did Meta get off easy?

**Spencer Cox** (1:01)
Well, in some ways, yes, and in other ways, no. Look, I was one of the lone dissenters when it came to the number. I thought the number should have been much, much higher.
But what we got on the other end was something that we probably could not have gotten as much of in court. And that is the equitable relief. That is making sure that now they have to create these kids' accounts, they put parents back in charge, that we're changing the algorithm, that we're turning these things, these platforms off at night, that we're having healthy pauses in there. These were all really important things that we've been pushing for. Utah was the first state to try to hold these companies accountable three, four years ago. And I'm really proud that we got that far.

**Tyler Kendall** (1:47)
So Governor, would you say this is more about the message that this sends more so than the money? And if you could drill in a little bit more on the money, how does Utah plan to allocate this? I know you mentioned one example there, but what else are you looking for?

**Spencer Cox** (2:00)
Yeah, so I want to say, it's not the message as much as, we got actual changes to the platforms, and that piece is really important. That piece matters. This is going to protect kids going forward. By the way, your kids should not be on these platforms at all, so get them off. But if they are on, this is going to make them safer. We want to use the money to mitigate the harms that have been caused. Look, Meta knew, these guys, they knew what they were doing. They had their own research that showed that this was causing significant harm, increases in suicide ideation, increases in self-harm, anxiety and depression, especially with young women. And they buried that research and moved forward anyway. So we need to use this money to help, again, mitigate those harms, to help kids who are struggling. And it's not enough to just get off social media. It's what do we do next? We need to provide more opportunities for kids in the real world, to get outside, to enjoy each other, to enjoy the real world again.
And that's what we're going to use the money for.

**Joe Mathieu** (3:01)
Well, as a father of a 19-year-old, I'm breathing fresh air just hearing you say that, Governor. So tell us how this works. These new guardrails are important. How do you enforce restrictions, for instance, on how much time kids can scroll when they're more clever than we are about getting around some of these parameters, parental controls, using other devices or other logins? I'm sure you thought this through.

**Spencer Cox** (3:23)
Yeah, look, there's no foolproof way to do this. We know that the kids are very smart, but this is huge because it requires the company for the first time to actually start age gating, right?
So, they have to know how old the person is. It puts parents in charge. The defaults now on these platforms are going to be to protect our kids. And now parents can override those if they want. If they want their kid on at 3 in the morning, the parent can change that and make it happen.
I don't pretend that we're going to catch every single kid in this, but it raises the bar significantly. We're suing other platforms as well. In fact, there's a kicker in this deal that significantly raises the monetary settlement if other platforms join in. And so we're going after those platforms as well. And if we can get everybody moving this direction, it's just going to help lift everyone. It's going to help kids, it's going to help parents and make our country a better place.