$17B settlement doesn’t do enough

Meta whistleblower says $17B settlement doesn’t do enough to save kids’ lives

A key witness in states’ case against the tech giant argues the attorneys general should have held out for more.

By Christine Mui

The $17 billion mega-settlement that states reached with Meta last week does not go far enough to save lives, according to a Facebook whistleblower and key witness in the kids’ safety trial.

Arturo Bejar, a former safety employee at Facebook, said in an interview that the agreement overrelies on time limits and other ways Meta can try to reduce harm, without doing enough to hold the company accountable for whether those methods succeed.

“I’ve spoken to around 40-something bereaved parents,” Bejar told POLITICO. “Social media recently played a meaningful role in their kids’ death, and these changes would not have saved one of those lives if they had been in place.”

The settlement came midway through a high-profile civil trial in which Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had been expected to testify over claims by California and more than two dozen other states that the company has intentionally hooked kids on its platforms while misleading users about their potential harms. The deal was heralded by the states as “a watershed moment” on a bipartisan issue where Congress has struggled to legislate, with the deal extending to at least 47 states, as well as the District of Columbia and U.S. territories.

Under the settlement, minors would get no more than two hours of access to Meta platforms Facebook and Instagram daily and be blocked overnight unless a parent decides to override the restrictions. The company will also have to bring on an independent auditor to police its compliance.

Bejar called it “momentous” that platform changes will be coming to Meta apps, but he argued the attorneys general gave Meta too much leeway and should’ve held out to force more measurable outcomes.

“The biggest challenge with the settlement is that, in the first page, Meta gets to define harm as whatever they define it as, and they get to put it in terms of the things they’re already doing,” Bejar said. “That’s the missed opportunity, and I think they should have waited.”

Bejar’s testimony, which spanned two days, honed in on certain algorithmic design choices that make Facebook and Instagram addictive to kids.

Meta’s agreement with the states addresses some of those features that psychologists have linked to negative social comparison — though not to the degree Bejar believes is necessary. The terms demand that Meta conceal the number of “likes” and reactions on minors’ posts, ban so-called “beauty filters” and give minors the option to deactivate personalized feeds that use algorithms to fine-tune content recommendations.

A spokesperson for Attorney General Jennifer Davenport of New Jersey, one of the states leading the trial team, said that she sees the settlement as a “major step forward” but isn’t letting up.

“We’re grateful for Mr. Bejar’s advocacy and for his testimony in our case,” a spokesperson for California Attorney General Rob Bonta said about Bejar’s criticisms of the settlement. “We agree that there is more to be done by legislatures and industry, but believe that the settlement we announced last week provides important protections for children and teens across the country.”

Bejar speculated that Meta decided to settle eight days into the trial because the proceedings were “not going well for them” and it likely wanted to keep Zuckerberg from testifying.

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in response that the settlement was “the product of years of conversations between Meta and the attorneys general.” Meta referred to the company’s announcement of the agreement when asked for comment on Bejar’s other remarks.

Florida’s Attorney General James Uthmeier previously also rejected the settlement as inadequate, opting out of the multistate deal and saying he intends to pursue a trial. If that proceeds, Bejar may well again be called to the witness stand.

That’s become a familiar place for him in recent years, with Meta facing an avalanche of social media addiction lawsuits. Bejar testified before Congress in 2023 about child safety on Instagram and took the stand at the last two landmark trials where Meta was found liable for hiding its platforms’ risks from young users, in Los Angeles and New Mexico.

Bejar suggested that states use the money from this settlement to fund longitudinal research of the harms teens experience on social media and efforts to continue holding companies like Meta accountable.

“If the harm continues, then the states need to do something about that,” he said. “By whatever tools are available to them, be it legislation, be it litigation.”