Meta’s $18B Settlement Falls Short | Salt Lake City News

Meta just paid $18 billion to 47 states after being sued for allegedly addicting kids through its platforms, but the settlement’s real-world impact? Minimal. It mandates age verification, daily usage caps, and school-hour notification limits — rules that barely scratch the surface of protecting millions of teens drowning in social media. Gen Z remembers a world without phones glued to our hands — now teens spend nearly five hours a day scrolling. Congress failed us. We need universal, enforceable protections like Australia’s 16-year-old age gate — not temporary fixes for one company. TikTok and YouTube aren’t even included. And let’s be real: Meta’s execs don’t let their own kids use these apps. This isn’t justice — it’s corporate hand-waving. Eighteen billion? Pocket change for a trillion-dollar empire. We need laws treating social media like the addictive substance it is — before another generation gets wrecked. Listen in comfort:Get a discount on a Soli Pillow: http://solipillow.com/discount/dnn. Advertise on DNN:[email protected] This is an automated, high-level news summary based on public reporting.Report issues to [email protected]. View sources & latest updates:https://sources.thednn.ai/ee3b4222b1d22c3d