Meta settled with California and other states for $16.7 billion over allegations the company lied about how much its platforms f*ck up children's brains. The settlement ends a federal trial. Meta admitted no wrongdoing. They just wrote a check large enough to fund a small country's GDP and walked away.
The states claimed Meta knew its products caused mental health problems in kids and misrepresented the extent of the damage. Meta's defense was presumably that everyone already knows social media is toxic and parents should simply never let their children have phones. Bulletproof legal strategy. Pay $16.7 billion anyway.
This is the same company that rebranded to Meta and bet the farm on a virtual reality metaverse nobody wants to visit. They lost $40 billion on that project before quietly pretending it never happened. Now they're hemorrhaging another $16.7 billion because they can't stop teenagers from scrolling at 3 a.m. until they hate themselves. Solid operational discipline.
Retail traders saw the settlement news and immediately started posting that this is bullish because legal uncertainty is resolved. They convinced themselves that a company paying $16.7 billion for poisoning children is actually a buying opportunity. These are the same people who bought META at $380 before it crashed to $90. They have learned nothing. They will learn nothing.
The attorneys general get to claim victory. Meta gets to keep operating exactly as it did before. Parents get a fraction of a penny per damaged kid. And the platforms keep recommending anorexia content to twelve-year-olds because the algorithm knows what drives engagement.
Nobody goes to jail. Nobody gets fired. The stock probably goes up because buybacks matter more than dead teenagers.
Photo by on Unsplash
Leave a Comment