Meta’s settlement with 52 state attorneys general is a bad deal for all internet users, and especially for teens. In this post, we go through the Settlement’s provisions in detail.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/70308545

In this post, we go through the Settlement’s provisions in detail and explain why that is so, including how:

The Settlement embeds age assurance technology and age-gates into Meta’s social media products and requires all users—minors and adults—to undergo a rights-threatening age estimation process

The Settlement places severe restrictions on Teens that can only be modified by the Teens’ parents and only then in exchange for giving their parents a ton of information about their online community and usage;

The Settlement seems to empower the attorneys general to enforce Meta’s content restriction on “age inappropriate content,” categories that Meta itself has had trouble administering without excluding information about sexuality, sexual and reproductive healthcare, and abortion medication;

The Settlement actually requires Meta to collect, analyze, and retain more information about its Teen users—when the pressure should have been on Meta to diminish its surveillance capitalism.

Wildly dangerous and irresponsible outcome to this.