Mark Zuckerberg and his Meta company agreed to a settlement in the social media addiction case which wasn't just a monetary one, but also will see changes made to the platforms.
While change is on the horizon for Meta and its platforms, there has been some confusion as to how these are being rolled out, and where.
Mark Zuckerberg and co agreed to a settlement in the social media addiction case, which will see them pay a maximum $16.68 billion, and implement changes to their platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.
The lawsuit was brought against the company by 29 US states, and the settlement has ended the federal trial which has been one of the most high-profile in recent years.
Tech Talk with Jess Kelly dove into the details of the case, examining whether or not these changes will also be implemented outside of the US or not.
Stephen O'Leary of Olytico, a social media and online media monitoring and analysis company, shared that he wasn't surprised by the settlement, but more so that it wasn't just a monetary one.
He explained: "I guess the reason that I’m not surprised is this has been a very long-running story. It’s something that has dominated news headlines in recent days and weeks and Meta wants to be focused on other things.
'Meta, along with the other major players in their sector, are essentially all in on AI at the moment and this is a distraction, and one that was essentially distracting the market and media and others from that core AI story that they want to put forward.
"What is more surprising is what the settlement contained, and that this case, it wasn’t just a monetary settlement they made, but actually, there’s going to be fundamental changes made to the platforms."
The statement released by Meta highlighted how the changes will be rolled-out in the states involved in the lawsuit only at first, which was confirmed by Newstalk during the week, but can we expect to see them here in Ireland?
As it stands, these changes will only be made in the US, but Mr O'Leary does expect it to reach our shores eventually.
He shared: "There is plenty of precedent for changes that have occurred in the US to make their way to other jurisdictions. So I agree, it would be much better if this was a global overnight immediate implementation and the platform just got better, especially for young people.
"That’s not the case; it's being implemented on a state by state basis at the moment and there’s also some questions as to how quickly some of these changes will be rolled out.
"My expectation would be that they don’t want similar cases and stories to pop up in Europe and other parts of the world and if they can make this work in the US, and critically it doesn’t have a major impact on their commercial revenue model and, once again, allows them to get back to focusing on the AI narrative they are fully invested in.
"I would be very surprised if we didn’t see the same kind of changes rolling out in Europe, Australia and other territories."
Main image: Mark Zuckerberg announcing the company's name-change to Meta Picture by: Sipa USA / Alamy Stock Photo
