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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.

by nclin_ 6mo ago

lithocarpus 6mo ago
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.
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
  > This represents 0.6% of meta's 2025 profits By coincidence, New Mexico represents 0.6% of America's population.
petcat 6mo ago
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.
- zelphirkalt 6mo ago
  That's good, but it can be read as: "Everyone can be a first time offender and get away with a slap on the wrist." -- where "everyone" is a tech company. Next they will find some other nefarious thing they don't need to check for properly, since that would be a new offense and again only get a wrist slap. There is no signal in this fine, other than "Hey it's OK, if you are big enough, you will get away with it. At least once, likely twice or more, depending on how big you are.".
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
riazrizvi 6mo ago
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.
- munk-a 6mo ago
  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.
  - riazrizvi 6mo ago
    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. EDIT: I see I'm mixing up the New Mexico case yesterday on sexploitation with the addiction case in Los Angeles I thought we were talking about here.
    - gusgus01 6mo ago
      This was about Meta's platforms not doing enough to protect children from sexual material (and allegedly ignoring employee warnings and lying to the public about it), not intrinsically their addictive interface and compelling user experience. I suppose the actions necessary to protect children from exposure to sexual material/exploitation could limit their ability to make certain changes to their platform, eg tighter moderation would reduce the amount of content that could be uploaded, but they could also have just not allowed children on the platform (like how Facebook started) and then not worried about child exploration?
arunc 6mo ago
$5000 is not even enough for trauma counseling, unless you have expensive insurance!
adityamwagh 6mo ago
That’s half a day worth of revenue for Meta. Why don’t companies get fined billions?

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.

by nclin_ 6mo ago

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.

lithocarpus 6mo ago

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.

JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
> This represents 0.6% of meta's 2025 profits By coincidence, New Mexico represents 0.6% of America's population.

petcat 6mo ago

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.

zelphirkalt 6mo ago
That's good, but it can be read as: "Everyone can be a first time offender and get away with a slap on the wrist." -- where "everyone" is a tech company. Next they will find some other nefarious thing they don't need to check for properly, since that would be a new offense and again only get a wrist slap. There is no signal in this fine, other than "Hey it's OK, if you are big enough, you will get away with it. At least once, likely twice or more, depending on how big you are.".
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]

riazrizvi 6mo ago

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.

munk-a 6mo ago
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.
- riazrizvi 6mo ago
  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. EDIT: I see I'm mixing up the New Mexico case yesterday on sexploitation with the addiction case in Los Angeles I thought we were talking about here.
  - gusgus01 6mo ago
    This was about Meta's platforms not doing enough to protect children from sexual material (and allegedly ignoring employee warnings and lying to the public about it), not intrinsically their addictive interface and compelling user experience. I suppose the actions necessary to protect children from exposure to sexual material/exploitation could limit their ability to make certain changes to their platform, eg tighter moderation would reduce the amount of content that could be uploaded, but they could also have just not allowed children on the platform (like how Facebook started) and then not worried about child exploration?

arunc 6mo ago

$5000 is not even enough for trauma counseling, unless you have expensive insurance!

adityamwagh 6mo ago

That’s half a day worth of revenue for Meta. Why don’t companies get fined billions?