In this episode, Steve Rosenbaum talks with Nicki Petrossi of Scrolling to Death and Dawson Kelly of Project Reboot and Design It For Us about Meta’s $16.68 billion settlement with states over the harm Facebook and Instagram have caused young people.
There is some real progress. Money will reach states sooner than a full trial likely would have allowed. Meta has agreed to product changes. And an independent auditor is meant to report on compliance.
“We won-ish.”
But the guests are clear-eyed about the limits. Much of the money will be paid over ten years. Some promised changes depend on Meta’s competitors joining in. And, as Nicki puts it, the changes may get teens to use Instagram and Facebook less, “but not keep them any safer.”
For Dawson, the larger victory may be cultural. His generation has grown up inside systems designed to capture attention, and he sees this as the defining issue of his generation. The goal is not to reject technology or social media. It is to demand products designed to serve people instead of addict them.
“If social media was actually social, we wouldn’t have to have this argument.”
The conversation looks ahead to the next individual and school-district cases, public pressure on Meta and its advertisers, and the difficult question of age verification. Nicki and Dawson argue that some real friction may be necessary to protect kids, provided privacy safeguards are strong.
And Dawson offers one of the episode’s most powerful ideas: social media has a secondhand-smoke effect. Its harms do not stop with the person using it. They spread to friends, families, classrooms, and the culture around us.
“The settlement may be a win-ish moment, but it is not the end of the fight. It may be the point where a broader movement finally begins.”
