A White Flag After Three Years of Denial

Meta waved a white flag on Wednesday. That is how TIME described the moment the company agreed to pay roughly 18 billion dollars to settle claims it deliberately hooked teenagers on Instagram and Facebook. The Meta teen safety settlement ends a legal battle that began in October 2023. It comes just over a week after a trial started in California. Four states were seeking as much as 1.4 trillion dollars in damages.

Matthew Bergman, founder of the Social Media Victims Law Center, called the moment vindication. “Meta has been steadfastly arguing that its platforms are not addictive,” he said. “That it didn’t do anything wrong.” The settlement suggests otherwise, even though Meta admits no wrongdoing.