On August 26, 2026 the landmark settlement in which 47 states filed against Meta for addicting kids and teens was settled. It resulted in Meta being fined $17.1 billion dollars. Additionally, Meta must also implement changes into their apps to prevent addiction. Teenagers will be limited to 2 hours per day, restricting teens from interacting with adults, and turning features such as autoplay off on Meta apps. As a response to these changes, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta and creator of Facebook, urged other social media companies to implement some version of the same changes on their apps as well. The reasoning was that young users will simply leave the site when the addiction prevention measure becomes inconvenient. While his statements may be true, he is definitely not doing it to protect minors but instead control his competitors- who were not forced to make such changes. Zuckerberg does not want his users to leave to other apps and believes that by beckoning them to install these changes, he may keep young users hooked on his apps rather than drifting to others. Zuckerberg is an abhorrent human being- and so are all of the other CEOs of social media. It’s not possible to make alterations to one app and fix it all, because they will try to find loopholes.
While I believe the lawsuit is a step in the right direction, it’s definitely not enough to protect the youth. Altering apps owned by Meta like Instagram a large amount may seem like a massive step forward, it’s not when considering the entire industry. Some other company will swoop in to fill the gap Meta left, which is why a nationwide ban on social media for youth is absolutely necessary. Australia was the first country to ban social media for everyone under 16 last year, which has proven that these regulations are possible. If the government continues to make isolated settlements like this, it will become a cat and mouse game with no end of a social media app becoming giant, then regulated. Another will take its place, and so on. In the end, there will be little real change made. We saw some of this when Tiktok got banned for a short period of time in the US and swaths of Tiktok users hungry for their dopamine hits switched over to another Chinese social media app, RedNote. Personally, I believe that if the end goal is to protect children from being poisoned by social meda, more substantial changes must be made.
As seen with AI regulations, the government will not act fast enough to make small changes like these effective. After Trump met with the CEO of Anthropic, the president concluded that AI must stay unregulated. He believes this because he does not want China to have the advantage when it comes to AI, it must stay unregulated (despite safety concerns, among other things). We’ve seen time and time again that laws have been proven to adapt to technology slowly. As a result, the government must take more extreme measures to protect children on social media. Putting duct tape on the Titanic wouldn’t have stopped it from sinking. It wouldn’t even have delayed it. More active measures need to be taken to protect the youth from being poisoned by social media.
Suhani Shivasharan is a senior at Washington High School. She was born in Santa Clara and moved to Fremont when she was six years old. This is her first year at The Hatchet, and she is interested in covering topics about arts and entertainment, including music, film, theater, and cultural events that engage audiences and spark discussions. Suhani enjoys dancing, skiing, skating, swimming, and hanging out with her friends. In the future, she hopes to go to college and study to become an Orthopedic Surgeon. She is super excited for senior year and to do great things at The Hatchet!