Will Meta's $18 Billion Settlement Change Social Media?

**Jessica Mendoza** (0:05)
This was supposed to be the second week of a landmark trial against the biggest social media company in the world.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:12)
We have now entered week two of the high-profile federal trial against Meta. A judge and jury are being asked to decide if social media is intentionally addictive.

**Jessica Mendoza** (0:22)
The lawsuit, brought by a coalition of state attorneys general, alleged that Facebook and Instagram have harmed underage users.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:30)
This story takes us to an Oakland, California courtroom. Testimony is underway and Meta's federal trial over claims its platforms have harmed youth mental health and also track children in violation of federal law.

**Meghan Bobrowsky** (0:45)
So I was planning for my week to look a lot different.

**Jessica Mendoza** (0:49)
Our colleague, Meghan Bobrowsky, had been attending the trial.

**Meghan Bobrowsky** (0:52)
I'm mapping out, like, I had driven over on Tuesday and I was like, should I drive again? Should I take public transit? I'm trying to, you know, like, that's where my head was at. But then yesterday morning, before Meghan even left her apartment, it very quickly became, oh, I'm not going to court because Meta has settled this case.

**SPEAKER_5** (1:16)
And breaking just moments ago an update on Meta's landmark trial. States that filed the lawsuit and Meta agreeing to settle claims.

**Jessica Mendoza** (1:24)
The settlement includes an $18 billion payout to 48 states, as well as a slate of changes to the way that young people can use Meta's platforms. Meta did not admit to wrongdoing.

**Meghan Bobrowsky** (1:36)
It definitely is the most effort that we've seen to date to stop users from building these addictive, perhaps unhealthy habits of just constantly scrolling.
Meta is a company that is always looking to grow, and so it's doing something here that is going to inhibit its growth, because partially they're being forced to. They're being a little bit backed into a corner here. It now marks a new frontier because now they're in this place where they're going to be putting restrictions on their apps that have never existed before.

**Jessica Mendoza** (2:15)
Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business and power. I'm Jessica Mendoza. It's Thursday, August 27th.
Coming up on the show, will Meta's multi-billion dollar settlement change social media?

**SPEAKER_6** (2:43)
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**Jessica Mendoza** (4:20)
Meghan, you were in the courtroom in the days before the settlement. How did it look like the case was going for Meta?

**Meghan Bobrowsky** (4:27)
Yeah. So multiple former Meta employees testified and the plaintiffs were citing internal documents that Meta knew that it was doing things that were harmful to its underage users. I think it was clear it was not going to be a slam dunk win for Meta. There was some stuff that was coming out in documents that did not paint Meta in a very favorable or innocent light.

**Jessica Mendoza** (4:53)
It seemed like a strong case for the states. Mark Zuckerberg himself was set to testify.
Adam Masseri, the head of Instagram, had already briefly taken the stand.

**Meghan Bobrowsky** (5:03)
He had a very calm demeanor.
He did make some comments about wishing that the company had moved quicker on some safety things. So I thought that's what we were going to be hearing more of on Wednesday when we were back in court. And Meta settled, and so there's no more court.