That's not how the legal framework in society works. Victims are compensated. The business pays. The precedent of wrongdoing is specifically established which means that further infringements can be quickly resolved.
The legal system does not seek to destroy the business, or individual criminal. Instead it wants them to be able to continue doing their other non-criminal stuff.
The legal system has two goals - to compensate individuals harmed and to discourage further violations of the law. This lawsuit seems to have fulfilled the first goal but fell flat on its face when it comes to punitive damages.
I think there's an axis of perceived wrongdoing here, and you and I fall on different points. Yours is more extreme, you say Meta was doing broad harm by exploring this activity, and want to see greater damages to scare other businesses off from the general territory of addictive interfaces. Mine is where we want businesses to continue to explore and develop 'sticky', compelling, user experiences but Meta went too deep in some specific ways.
Well hopefully now that there's precedent, it will open them up to recurring repeat-offender lawsuits and legal action. The goal is to get them to stop doing predatory things now.
This represents 0.6% of meta's 2025 profits, or 0.2% of revenue. Though presumably it was based on harms from previous years, I haven't read the lawsuit.
Corporate liability isolation has become absurd. People who make decisions that harm people should be held to account for those decisions even if they structured their decision making apparatus in a legal way that makes it look like they're just following the orders of the shareholders.
Zuckerberg has a brain, he decided to take this action, it is absurd he is not being hit with a personal penalty.
As part of the ongoing enshittification of the internet, tragedy of the commons etc., these big centralized internet platforms decided that instead of being responsible and making their products *slightly* less terrible it was better to maximize short term engagement metrics, and that, egotistically, the chance of there being real consequences for their actions was near zero. (Or, even more cynically, that their yearly performance review was more important).
Now I'm afraid they've screwed everyone over and the idea of an anonymous open internet is now dead- we're gonna see age (read, real ID) verification gating on every site and app soon....
The dumb thing is to look back and see how umimportant it is that Facebook feed algorithm be this addictive. They already had the network effects and no real competitors. They could have just left it alone.
What's horribly frustrating with the age ID stuff is that the issue at question with Meta wasn't that they didn't know what they were doing and that they were doing it to children. They did. This wasn't an issue of "If only they had the the age, then they could have done the right thing".
The laws being passed target exactly the wrong thing that wasn't a problem. They should have been passing "duty to care" laws aimed at social media companies not "give me your age" laws.
I may have missed it, but almost all these laws being passed for this issue have been pretty much solely around data collection rather than modifying the behavior of the worst businesses in the game.
It would be like seeing a car wreck kill a bunch of pedestrians and then passing a law that pedestrians need to carry IDs on them.
Yea, in the end there will basically be no consequences for Meta- Facebook is already mostly dead, and the ad revenue from that time has already been collected.
Now we're just moving on to a kind of moral panic think-of-the-kids kind of moment that is thinly-veiled state surveillance.
Watching Mark testify before the senate it honestly appears like it may have never occurred to him that it is an option to have not offered a feature. He treats the product as if it is some kind of inevitable outcome that was destined to exist.
Mass surveillance 'for your own good' instead of regulating social media in any way.
You can purchase a scam ad it'll be up in 10 minutes. Lie to every anxious child they have ADHD and need meth, lie to every dejected boy that they just need to manosphere up and buy supplements.
They think the public is stupid. They might be right.
Until the fines are large enough to impact business and cause heads to roll, and maybe we even see some prison time for executives, companies will continue to not give a fuck. This is chump change for Meta.
Name and shame the managers and leadership at this time.
I dream of a world where they'd be recognized and shamed in the streets for all the damage they've done to society. Instead they get to do all kinds of side quests with their money.
I'd much rather they get personally fined and/or banned from holding leadership positions in the field (with varying timeframes depending on the level of responsibility).
Naming and shaming won't do much good. It could backfire and serve as a positive mark on their resume for other morally corrupt leaders.
I haven't read this article, but I can tell you for certain that no verdict was handed down that will punish them in any way that matters. They have and generate more money than they could ever spend and they're functionally above the law because of the money and lawyers they can afford. The law itself is broken in this country and when you get big enough you can literally get away with murder.
Honestly he was more right with the death part. The only thing these people really fear is death. Anything else is a fine and a fine means nothing when you don't feel it.
+1. If there's a dollar amount attached to a verdict for a company of this size, then it's just a complicated business expense and not an enforcement of a law.
Until we start to penalize companies by percentage of global revenue rather than some arbitrary dollar amount that pales in comparison to their revenues this sort of stuff is going to keep happening.
$3m is nothing. 10% of global revenues (not profits) for each year in which this occurred would be something that might actually make them think twice about breaking the law and harming people for money.
Once there's a pattern of abuse, you can go after the execs personally for purposes of the carrying out of justice. Courts don't like the idea of bad actors hiding themselves behind corporations. You don't even need to "piece the veil" — you just go straight for the Zuck.
Will literally never happen. It's impossible. I'm not talking figuratively impossible. At his level of wealth and influence, there are good odds he could murder someone on live stream and walk away. You are dangerously underestimating the influence the rich have in every aspect of society and law.
C-levels need to face real consequences. A ban on moving to a new executive position or serving on a board for 10 years would rapidly fix the systemic ethical problems.
> It's a $3 million verdict in compensatory damages. Even if reduced on appeal, that's a lot of money.
Where are you seeing that?
The article says:
> Jurors found there were thousands of violations, each counting separately toward a penalty of $375 million. That’s less than one-fifth of what prosecutors were seeking.
> Meta is valued at about $1.5 trillion and the company’s stock was up 5% in early after-hours trading following the verdict, a signal that shareholders were shrugging off the news.
> Juror Linda Payton, 38, said the jury reached a compromise on the estimated number of teenagers affected by Meta’s platforms, while opting for the maximum penalty per violation. With a maximum $5,000 penalty for each violation, she said she thought each child was worth the maximum amount.
lol. And you think we will ever legalize drugs (and people can take responsibility), when large companies are being sued for being addicted to social media?
There's a vast difference between accurately advertising the effects of drugs and the risks involved in taking them, versus lying to you about the drugs and creating an environment that furthers addition.
It all boils down to consent.
I might want to take some drugs that have some harmful side effects. But i knew about them and i willingly made the choice because I valued the high more.
Contrast this with, I knew about the harmful side effects and told you they didnt exist and you should take more. And then i change the drug so its even MORE harmful because it also makes you BUY more. That's what these social media sites do.
They use engineered sociology and psychology to create addictive products, and then refine them to maximize profit at the cost of anything they can pull a lever on.
What bothers me the most is not the vampires at the top sucking out every dollar they can extract out of vulnerable people, but the fact that so many engineers are supporting this. So much for engineering ethics. Why even bother teaching it anymore?
If you take actions to deliberately weaponize your product against children in particular, whatever it is -- you shouldn't be surprised when liability attaches. That's what this verdict is about.
375 million awarded at $5000 per child harmed. Implying that only 75,000 children were harmed.
Got away with it again, good profit, will repeat.
That's not how the legal framework in society works. Victims are compensated. The business pays. The precedent of wrongdoing is specifically established which means that further infringements can be quickly resolved.
The legal system does not seek to destroy the business, or individual criminal. Instead it wants them to be able to continue doing their other non-criminal stuff.
The legal system has two goals - to compensate individuals harmed and to discourage further violations of the law. This lawsuit seems to have fulfilled the first goal but fell flat on its face when it comes to punitive damages.
I think there's an axis of perceived wrongdoing here, and you and I fall on different points. Yours is more extreme, you say Meta was doing broad harm by exploring this activity, and want to see greater damages to scare other businesses off from the general territory of addictive interfaces. Mine is where we want businesses to continue to explore and develop 'sticky', compelling, user experiences but Meta went too deep in some specific ways.
They have enough lawyers that they can easily find another criminal avenue that doesn't step on the previous path.
Well hopefully now that there's precedent, it will open them up to recurring repeat-offender lawsuits and legal action. The goal is to get them to stop doing predatory things now.
This represents 0.6% of meta's 2025 profits, or 0.2% of revenue. Though presumably it was based on harms from previous years, I haven't read the lawsuit.
The fine is just one of the costs of doing business for these megacorps.
It's price in
Why do we have prison sentences for insider trading, which is arguably (much) less harmful to the society, and not for this?
because the damage done is relatively objective?
[delayed]
Wasn't Zuckerberg caught red handed in emails signing off on this? When is he going to be facing consequences?
Corporate liability isolation has become absurd. People who make decisions that harm people should be held to account for those decisions even if they structured their decision making apparatus in a legal way that makes it look like they're just following the orders of the shareholders.
Zuckerberg has a brain, he decided to take this action, it is absurd he is not being hit with a personal penalty.
Consequences are for poor people.
As usual the company is going to financially shield those responsible, while they in turn shield the company from societal blame.
Tststs.. it's only allowed to harm adults and the environment for profit.
Don't forget democracy
Does this mean Apple, Nintendo, and Disney are at risk too?
I would love to see some justice.
and also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47514916 It might be good to roll all the comments together.
two separate cases.
Both articles cite a New Mexico case about the Unfair Practices act.
Though I don't see a link to a specific case in either article, I don't think they're separate cases.
As part of the ongoing enshittification of the internet, tragedy of the commons etc., these big centralized internet platforms decided that instead of being responsible and making their products *slightly* less terrible it was better to maximize short term engagement metrics, and that, egotistically, the chance of there being real consequences for their actions was near zero. (Or, even more cynically, that their yearly performance review was more important).
Now I'm afraid they've screwed everyone over and the idea of an anonymous open internet is now dead- we're gonna see age (read, real ID) verification gating on every site and app soon....
The dumb thing is to look back and see how umimportant it is that Facebook feed algorithm be this addictive. They already had the network effects and no real competitors. They could have just left it alone.
What's horribly frustrating with the age ID stuff is that the issue at question with Meta wasn't that they didn't know what they were doing and that they were doing it to children. They did. This wasn't an issue of "If only they had the the age, then they could have done the right thing".
The laws being passed target exactly the wrong thing that wasn't a problem. They should have been passing "duty to care" laws aimed at social media companies not "give me your age" laws.
I may have missed it, but almost all these laws being passed for this issue have been pretty much solely around data collection rather than modifying the behavior of the worst businesses in the game.
It would be like seeing a car wreck kill a bunch of pedestrians and then passing a law that pedestrians need to carry IDs on them.
Yea, in the end there will basically be no consequences for Meta- Facebook is already mostly dead, and the ad revenue from that time has already been collected.
Now we're just moving on to a kind of moral panic think-of-the-kids kind of moment that is thinly-veiled state surveillance.
Watching Mark testify before the senate it honestly appears like it may have never occurred to him that it is an option to have not offered a feature. He treats the product as if it is some kind of inevitable outcome that was destined to exist.
It's not just avoiding any responsibility?
>They already had the network effects and no real competitors.
Meta's biggest competitor was users' personal lives, not any other web service. They have been ruthless in crushing that competition.
Management comp is tied to numbers go up
You start slow, then push it the limits
Netflix, never ads to some ads, then eventually its just Adflix, after 20 years.
Each new manager wants that comp up. So ads up by 5% every year.
Mass surveillance 'for your own good' instead of regulating social media in any way.
You can purchase a scam ad it'll be up in 10 minutes. Lie to every anxious child they have ADHD and need meth, lie to every dejected boy that they just need to manosphere up and buy supplements.
They think the public is stupid. They might be right.
Until the fines are large enough to impact business and cause heads to roll, and maybe we even see some prison time for executives, companies will continue to not give a fuck. This is chump change for Meta.
Name and shame the managers and leadership at this time. I dream of a world where they'd be recognized and shamed in the streets for all the damage they've done to society. Instead they get to do all kinds of side quests with their money.
I'd much rather they get personally fined and/or banned from holding leadership positions in the field (with varying timeframes depending on the level of responsibility).
Naming and shaming won't do much good. It could backfire and serve as a positive mark on their resume for other morally corrupt leaders.
Short prison sentences would be a good deterant for white collar crime, rather than fines.
meh. hit the C suite and the board with life-altering punitive damages.
I haven't read this article, but I can tell you for certain that no verdict was handed down that will punish them in any way that matters. They have and generate more money than they could ever spend and they're functionally above the law because of the money and lawyers they can afford. The law itself is broken in this country and when you get big enough you can literally get away with murder.
If history is any indication, only demonstrable threat of personal erasure will affect the behavior of people on this scale.
By "erasure," I'm not referring to the death of the involved; I'm referring to the elimination of the individual's social capital.
When the privileged lose their ability to influence others, they tend to get rather distressed.
How would we do that here? Make Zuckerberg divest from FB or Meta as a whole? Would that be possible?
Honestly he was more right with the death part. The only thing these people really fear is death. Anything else is a fine and a fine means nothing when you don't feel it.
I am repeating myself, but prison would be a good deterant
+1. If there's a dollar amount attached to a verdict for a company of this size, then it's just a complicated business expense and not an enforcement of a law.
they should give voting stock out as punishment.
It's a $3 million verdict in compensatory damages. Even if reduced on appeal, that's a lot of money.
This is really bad for Meta.
Meta has a net profit over $140 million _per day_. $3 million is absolutely nothing to them.
how many minutes of revenue is that?
they did $200 billion in revenue and $60 billion in net income last year.
a $3 billion fine would be barely more than a slap on the wrist.
Until we start to penalize companies by percentage of global revenue rather than some arbitrary dollar amount that pales in comparison to their revenues this sort of stuff is going to keep happening.
$3m is nothing. 10% of global revenues (not profits) for each year in which this occurred would be something that might actually make them think twice about breaking the law and harming people for money.
Once there's a pattern of abuse, you can go after the execs personally for purposes of the carrying out of justice. Courts don't like the idea of bad actors hiding themselves behind corporations. You don't even need to "piece the veil" — you just go straight for the Zuck.
>you just go straight for the Zuck.
Will literally never happen. It's impossible. I'm not talking figuratively impossible. At his level of wealth and influence, there are good odds he could murder someone on live stream and walk away. You are dangerously underestimating the influence the rich have in every aspect of society and law.
C-levels need to face real consequences. A ban on moving to a new executive position or serving on a board for 10 years would rapidly fix the systemic ethical problems.
> It's a $3 million verdict in compensatory damages. Even if reduced on appeal, that's a lot of money.
Where are you seeing that?
The article says:
> Jurors found there were thousands of violations, each counting separately toward a penalty of $375 million. That’s less than one-fifth of what prosecutors were seeking.
> Meta is valued at about $1.5 trillion and the company’s stock was up 5% in early after-hours trading following the verdict, a signal that shareholders were shrugging off the news.
> Juror Linda Payton, 38, said the jury reached a compromise on the estimated number of teenagers affected by Meta’s platforms, while opting for the maximum penalty per violation. With a maximum $5,000 penalty for each violation, she said she thought each child was worth the maximum amount.
lol. And you think we will ever legalize drugs (and people can take responsibility), when large companies are being sued for being addicted to social media?
There's a vast difference between accurately advertising the effects of drugs and the risks involved in taking them, versus lying to you about the drugs and creating an environment that furthers addition.
It all boils down to consent.
I might want to take some drugs that have some harmful side effects. But i knew about them and i willingly made the choice because I valued the high more.
Contrast this with, I knew about the harmful side effects and told you they didnt exist and you should take more. And then i change the drug so its even MORE harmful because it also makes you BUY more. That's what these social media sites do.
They use engineered sociology and psychology to create addictive products, and then refine them to maximize profit at the cost of anything they can pull a lever on.
What bothers me the most is not the vampires at the top sucking out every dollar they can extract out of vulnerable people, but the fact that so many engineers are supporting this. So much for engineering ethics. Why even bother teaching it anymore?
If you take actions to deliberately weaponize your product against children in particular, whatever it is -- you shouldn't be surprised when liability attaches. That's what this verdict is about.
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47509984