In a recent post, I discussed the book An Ugly Truth that looked at how Facebook/Meta valued engagement on the site as the most important goal because its profits depended upon having more and more users and having them spend more more and more time on the site. Racist, misogynistic, homophobic and other hateful posts had the effect of creating more engagement and so the company was reluctant to crack down on on them, doing so only when their was a massive public outcry.
Now Facebook/Meta has settled a lawsuit brought by various states alleging that, among other things, the company was cavalier with the harm done to young children.
Last Wednesday, Meta reached a settlement with the attorneys general of forty-seven states, who had sued it for illegally manipulating the attention of children. The settlement will cost the company, which didn’t acknowledge wrongdoing, up to seventeen billion dollars, a striking figure. Even more striking is a detail reported by the Wall Street Journal: during the second quarter of 2026 alone, Meta spent more than two billion dollars on its legal defense.