Discussion

Jury says Meta knowingly harmed children for profit, awarding landmark verdict

WarcrimeActual: 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.

tikimcfee: +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.

smuhakg: 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.

john_strinlai: 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.

danudey: 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.

kevin_thibedeau: 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.

awongh: 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.

returnInfinity: Management comp is tied to numbers go upYou start slow, then push it the limitsNetflix, 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.

cogman10: What's horribly frustrating with the age ID stuff is that the issue at question with Meta wasn't that the 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.

jazzpush2: 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.

bovermyer: 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.

johnnyanmac: How would we do that here? Make Zuckerberg divest from FB or Meta as a whole? Would that be possible?

billfor: and also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47514916 It might be good to roll all the comments together.

ehl0: two separate cases.

forgetfreeman: meh. hit the C suite and the board with life-altering punitive damages.

maqnius: Tststs.. it's only allowed to harm adults and the environment for profit.

jazz9k: 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?

mlyle: 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.

cedws: Wasn't Zuckerberg caught red handed in emails signing off on this? When is he going to be facing consequences?

nclin_: 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.

longislandguido: Does this mean I can sue Apple for raising my blood pressure every time I use iOS 26?

etchalon: Consequences are for poor people.

CrzyLngPwd: The fine is just one of the costs of doing business for these megacorps.

notnullorvoid: 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.

nclin_: 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: 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.

xvxvx: 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.

riazrizvi: 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.

worik: Short prison sentences would be a good deterant for white collar crime, rather than fines.