Meta lawsuit: Is social media about to change?

The 3-year-long social media addiction lawsuit against Meta ended with the company settling for $18 billion and promising to make significant changes to its platforms, Instagram and Facebook.

Meta was accused by 29 states of knowing that its products might be harming kids and teens and failing to do anything to stop it.

Even before any agreement was reached between the two parties, it was already hinted that the company would face drastic changes to its platforms.

Among these changes were the infinite scroll, video autoplay, the removal of temporary content (such as Instagram Stories), the hiding of the like count, and more.

In addition to the monetary settlement, the company agreed to take certain steps to ensure that its users who are not yet 18 years old are protected.

What are the upcoming changes for Instagram and Facebook?

According to the settlement document, Meta agrees to take measures that would prevent underage kids from accessing the platform or “age-restricted content available on the platform.”

It would also create “additional tools” to help parents protect their kids online.

The company would also implement 2-hour limits on social media use, with mandatory pauses after 15 minutes of scrolling. Underage users would also be blocked from using platforms during nighttime or during school hours.

When it comes to changes to the platform, it would also remove visible likes and suspend the use of cosmetic filters, which are “any digital filter or augmented reality (AR) effect that distorts, sculpts, redefines, or idealizes a user’s face in a way that cannot be achieved without cosmetic surgery or extreme makeup techniques.”

Despite the right intentions, some of these changes might not be necessary. The age verification and parental controls have already been introduced, but how useful are they, really?

Regarding the 2-hour platform usage limit, it should be questioned whether younger users spend that much time on platforms, like Facebook, as noted by TechRadar.

Meta is under fire, while user content stays untouchable

While the changes are focused on underage users, would they bring a broader change?

There’s a reason why this list of changes looks the way it does, shared James Rubinowitz, a civil litigator focusing on AI regulatory regimes and CEO of Execute.law, to Cybernews.

“Meta's shield in every one of these cases is Section 230, which protects platforms from liability for what users post, so the states are making sure they don't go near content posted by users during this trial,” explained the expert.

Meanwhile, infinite scroll, autoplay, 24-hour Stories, like counts, and filters are “Meta’s own machinery.”

“The best analogy I can give is that this case attacks the slot machine, not the artwork shown when someone hits a jackpot,” added Rubinowitz.

The expert also noted that while the focus is now on how social media platforms have been created, it’s only one side of the problem, as the content we consume can be just as addictive. However, little is being done about that.

The implementation of court-settled changes to social media will show whether it was the problem.

“If these features disappear and nothing else changes, we have put a bandage on a bullet wound because we will still be fed all the content with a very similar algorithm,” concluded the expert.

TikTok, Snapchat, when is your turn?

There’s nothing surprising about platform updates that bring features already seen on other platforms. Those 24-hour Instagram Stories, which were first a thing on Snapchat, could be one example.

Given that a number of social media applications that aren't Meta-owned are built on similar features, should they take this lawsuit as a warning sign?

While the current case only focuses on Meta and its practices, “the day a federal judge finds infinite scroll unlawful as deployed against minors, every platform built on the same features starts pricing the same exposure,” shared Rubinowitz, adding that they would take such or similar features down just to avoid being sued.

“Cases like this are won on internal documents, telemetry, and A/B test records, the artifacts showing what a company knew about a feature's effect and when,” Thiago Vieira, court-appointed digital forensics expert and lawyer, and CEO of Cybertech Acceleration, explained to Cybernews.

Any company whose platform includes the same features should also assume that this information is discoverable, with the documents becoming evidence.

“A court binds a defendant. A statute binds a market,” concluded Vieira on how the case can have an impact on other platforms.

Meta’s settlement rubs salt into the age verification wound

In recent years, there have been multiple attempts to protect kids from the threats lurking on social media platforms.

Australia has implemented its social media ban, with many countries agreeing to age verification.

While these are possible solutions to the issues at hand, they also bring new challenges, such as bypassing restrictions or collecting private data.

It seems that Meta’s lawsuit may also add to it.

“[...] Young users will now have less access to Meta products, and a lesser ability to exercise their rights to speak, access information and art and culture, associate and form communities, and play,” wrote Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a non-profit digital rights group.

In its reaction to the statement, it also notes that focusing on a user's age will allow companies to collect even more information about them.

According to the organization, the court-appointed changes will turn “Meta’s harmful surveillance into law,” compromising “users' privacy and anonymity while increasing their exposure to data breaches and government data requests.”