Meta同意支付180億美元，以和解美國關於兒童社交媒體成癮的訴訟（2/2）

Recently Reuter reported the following:

Meta agrees to pay $18 billion to settle US lawsuits over children's social media addiction (2/2)

Reuter - By Diana Novak Jones, Jonathan Stempel and Greg Bensinger

August 26, 20268:20 AM PDT. Updated 9 hours ago

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Wednesday's settlements also call for Meta to pay $459 million to resolve states' privacy claims related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where a British consulting firm collected personal ‌data of millions of ⁠Facebook users without authorization.

U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers approved the main settlement late Wednesday. She had overseen the trial that began on August 18.

At a hearing, she called the settlement "a good step forward," and told lawyers for Meta and the states: "I am quite happy to not have to finish up this trial."

Instagram head Adam Mosseri had begun testifying before the settlement was announced, and Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg had been expected to testify.

Mosseri told representatives of the states last month that Meta would appeal any verdict it lost but would make constructive changes if a settlement could be worked out, people familiar with the matter said.

MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS

Social media companies still face thousands of lawsuits in federal and state courts by individuals, school districts, municipalities and other government entities claiming they knowingly sought to addict children and caused a mental health crisis including harms such as anxiety, depression and suicide. Gonzalez Rogers oversees many of these cases.

The Meta trial included claims by California, Colorado, Kentucky and New ⁠Jersey that the company's conduct violated state consumer protection laws.

It also included claims by 29 states that Meta violated the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act by knowingly collecting personal data from children without parental consent, and using the data to train generative AI.

Meta had long argued that it could not have misled consumers because "social media addiction" was not a recognized psychiatric condition.

Before the trial began, Meta said California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey were seeking up to $1.4 trillion in penalties.

Earlier this month, a New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay $567 million and implement youth safety measures, in addition to $375 million a jury ordered Meta to pay in the same case in March for ⁠misleading users about its platforms' safety.

Also in March, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and Alphabet's Google negligent in designing their platforms, and ordered them to pay $6 million to a 20-year-old woman who said she became addicted to Instagram and YouTube as a child.

Meta and Google have said they will appeal those verdicts.

Last month, the European Commission threatened to fine Meta unless it changed some product features, after preliminarily finding that the company breached a 2022 European Union regulation governing the removal of harmful content by large online platforms. A spokesperson said the commission remains in dialogue with Meta on possible changes.

New Mexico was not ⁠part of Wednesday's settlements.

Raul Torrez, the New Mexico attorney general, said the resolution missed some changes his case spurred in his state, including safeguards against adults targeting children and banning sexualized AI chatbot interactions with children, yet "represents real progress and adds momentum to finish the job of protecting kids online."

Florida also did not settle and plans to keep litigating.

"The payouts to the states are peanuts compared to the profound harms Meta’s profit-driven addictive features have inflicted on our children," Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said in a statement. "We’ll see them at trial."

Translation

Meta同意支付180億美元，以和解美國關於兒童社交媒體成癮的訴訟（2/2）

（繼續）

週三達成的和解協議還要求 Meta 支付4.59億美元，以解決各州就有關 Cambridge Analytica 公司的隱私索賠。該醜聞涉及一家英國顧問公司未經授權收集了數百萬個Facebook用戶的個人資料。

美國地區法官 Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers 於週三晚些時候批准了主要和解協議。她曾主持了這個由8月18日開始的審判。

在一次聽證會上，她稱該和解協議是“向前邁出的重要一步”，並告訴 Meta 和各州的律師：“我很高興不必完成這場審判了。”

在和解協議宣佈之前，Instagram 執行長 Adam Mosseri 就已經開始作證，而 Meta 執行長 Mark Zuckerberg 也預計會出庭作證。

知情人士透露，Mosseri 上個月告訴各州代表，Meta 將對任何敗訴的判決會提出上訴，但如果能夠達成和解，該公司將做出建設性的改變。

心理健康危機

社交媒體公司們在聯邦和州法院仍面臨數千起訴訟，原告包括個人、學區、市政當局和其他政府機構，他們聲稱這些公司明知故犯地試圖讓兒童沉迷其中，並造成了包括焦慮、憂鬱和自殺等在內的心理健康危機。Gonzalez Rogers 律師事務所負責處理其中許多案件。

Meta 案的審判包括加州、科羅拉多州、肯塔基州和新澤西州提出的指控，稱該公司的行為違反了各州的消費者保護法。

此外，還有 29 個州指控 Meta 違反了聯邦《兒童線上隱私權保護法》(COPPA)，在未經父母同意的情況下故意收集兒童的個人數據，並使用這些數據來訓練生成式人工智能(generative AI)。

Meta一直辯稱，它不可能誤導消費者，因為「社交媒體成癮」並非一種公認的精神疾病。

在審判開始前，Meta 表示，加州、科羅拉多州、肯塔基州和新澤西州正在尋求高達1.4兆美元的罰款。

本月初，新墨西哥州的一名法官判決 Meta 支付5.67億美元，並實施青少年安全措施。此前，陪審團已於3月在同一案件中判令 Meta 支付3.75億美元，原因是該公司誤導用戶去稱其平台安全可靠。

同樣在3月份，洛杉磯的一個陪審團認定Meta以及Alphabet旗下的谷歌在平台設計方面存在疏忽，並判令它們向一名20歲的女性支付600萬美元的賠償金。該名女性稱，她從小就沉迷於Instagram 和 YouTube。

Meta 以及谷歌均表示將對這些判決提出上訴。

上個月，歐盟委員會初步認定 Meta 違反了歐盟2022年關於大型線上平台移除有害內容的法規，並威脅稱，除非Meta更改其部分產品功能，否則將對其處以罰款。一位發言人表示，委員會仍在與Meta就可能的改進方案進行對話。

新墨西哥州並未參與週三達成的和解協議。

新墨西哥州總檢察長 Raul Torrez 表示，該和解協議未能促成他在該州提起訴訟所推動的一些變革，例如保護措施以防止成年人針對兒童 ，及禁止性化的AI聊天機器人與兒童互動。但他同時表示，“協議代表著真正的進步，並為完成保護兒童網上安全的工作注入了動力。”

佛羅裡達州也未達成和解，並計劃繼續進行訴訟。

佛羅裡達州總檢察長 James Uthmeier 在一份聲明中表示：“相比與 Meta 以盈利為目的的成癮功能帶給我們孩子造成的深遠傷害，其支付給各州的賠償金簡直微不足道。我們將在法庭上見分曉。”

              So, Meta Platforms will pay up to $18 billion over the next decade and strictly limit how teenagers use Facebook and Instagram under an agreement with nearly all U.S. states. While Meta will not undergo a fundamental overhaul, the accords represent a renew effort to define how it serves young users. Probably, the present settlement could provide a template for resolving thousands of other lawsuits against social media companies in the US and Europe.