Meta’s mega settlement could change social media UX as we know it

FastCompany: Meta has agreed to a settlement worth $16.7 billion with 47 states, the District of Columbia, and multiple U.S. territories, and it could change social media as we know it. The settlement agreement , which was filed on August 26 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in Oakland, comes days into a landmark social media trial that put Meta head-to-head with a coalition of state attorneys general who alleged that the tech giant was purposefully designing its social media sites to result in compulsive use among young users.

Meta’s capitulation means that the company will have to pay significant damages to the parties who brought the suit and, even more consequentially, it will be responsible for implementing a flurry of design changes to Instagram and Facebook. It’s a bellwether moment for social media regulation that, ultimately, could use new UX design parameters to put some power back into users’ hands. How we got here The Meta settlement represents the first major regulatory outcome of a series of trials starring the world’s biggest social media companies that have played out over the course of this summer .

Earlier this year , a court in California found that both Meta and YouTube were negligent for using “addictive” features like autoplay, infinite scroll, and ephemeral content, leading a young woman to develop compulsive social media habits. In a New Mexico trial, Meta was found culpable for failing to protect young users from child predators on Instagram and Facebook. In both of these cases, Meta was only ordered to pay damages to the plaintiffs—but those decisions helped set the scene for this most recent case.

Meta’s trial this August dates back to October 2023, when multiple states sued the company for allegedly designing Facebook and Instagram to be addictive. The suit was spearheaded by the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey.

In a statement leading into the trial, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser laid out the states’ key complaints: first, that Meta “deliberately designed its platforms to exploit young users’ vulnerabilities, foster compulsive use, and maximize the time young people spend on Facebook and Instagram”; second, that it “knew about harms to young users but deceived users, parents, and the public about the risks”; and, third, that it “illegally collected personal information from children under 13 without their parents’ consent, in violation of the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.” For the past several months, states and lawmakers

have been testing whether it might be possible to use the courts to institute broader social media design reforms —and it looks like they have their answer. Now, Meta will need to significantly overhaul its platforms’ user experience to meet the plaintiffs’ requirements. The 5 major design changes to expect from Meta At its core, this Meta trial—and the similar suits that faced companies including Snap , TikTok , and YouTube earlier this year—is all about the role that design has played in causing compulsive, potentially harmful use among young users.

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The article discusses a significant settlement that could reshape social media UX, making it highly impactful and relevant for brand strategy professionals, while the novelty is moderate as regulatory changes in UX are becoming more common.