Meta’s Child Safety Settlement: A Wake-Up Call for Gaming

Meta just settled to pay $17 billion to resolve a massive lawsuit brought by dozens of U.S. states and territories.

They’d been accusing Facebook and Instagram of harming the mental health of children and teens. I think this settlement will change the gaming industry, but that’s only the smallest part of the story. The platform will now change how it works for kids and teens. Services close down at night, notifications get muted, and likes disappear from posts.

There’s so much stuff happening in that settlement beyond just these three.

What we see now from this settlement is that this will be the new industry standard for communities where kids and teens are.

Is that a good direction? Yes.
Is it enough? No.

Because platforms will need a bigger focus on player wellness, and they’ll need to show what they’re actually doing about it.

This means moderation isn’t optional anymore.

With this settlement, with parents, with states, and users themselves are saying, “You have to do something, you have to change. Your service took my kid away from me, my kid was damaged for life, they died, you have to do something.” And now the industry is starting to see it for themselves, and they’re waking up to it, together. We all need to do more.

That will change the whole industry, for the better. But we are not done yet. We have just started. We need to make sure this is for the best for the young people we try to protect and respect their privacy. It is a fine line between safeguarding and surveillance. Let’s not make this settlement into the worst deal ever for our teens, and let’s not punish the teens for the harm the bad actors have done.