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Meta’s $18B settlement is a useful FIRST step toward protecting kids — but can not be the LAST

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Meta’s $18 billion settlement with 48 state attorneys general marks a welcome — and grossly overdue — step toward protecting kids from social media.

The figure is surely more logical than the $1.4 trillion, roughly equal to the company’s market cap, that Meta says the AGs sought.

Then again, it’s a pittance for the company: The platform might wind up paying as little as 30% of that amount over 10 years, or about $550 million a year — about what it hauls in on an average day.

That hardly compares to the enormous harm social media has caused an entire generation of kids — those who’ve gotten addicted, suffered anxiety or depression or even attempted suicide.

Still, as Fairplay, one of Meta’s loudest critics, concedes, the financial penalty is........

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