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Happy Thursday. I’m Isaac Saul, writing on a rain-soaked and unusually cool August morning in northern New Jersey. I’m taking my 19-month-old son on his first-ever camping trip this weekend, and I’m bracing for some rough nights of sleep. But I’m also determined to make sure he gets to spend a lot of time outside in every phase of childhood; I’m confident these experiences will kindle a lasting love of nature, the outdoors, and (hopefully) time with dad. If you have tips and advice for camping with an under-two kid, I’m all ears.

Speaking of time outside and love of the outdoors, today’s main topic is about the other side of the coin: harm caused by social media addiction. We’re breaking down the Meta lawsuit and settlement and what it means for screen time and our children going forward. Also, a reader question about Flock cameras and a feel-good story on how one shelter helped a cat walk again. It’s a 14-minute read.

The latest Suspension of the Rules.

Is decency back? Isaac, Ari, and Kmele discuss a fascinating gubernatorial candidate in Iowa and an interesting couple of moments from a Fox News anchor before Ari gets canceled in a highly aggrieved grievances section. Check it out here:

Quick hits.

1. Flash floods along the Nepal–China border killed at least 270 people, with over 1,450 still missing. A preliminary assessment suggested that the floods were caused by a glacier partially collapsing, with a large ice segment falling thousands of feet and crashing into the Bhotekoshi River. (The floods)

2. The federal judge who issued a nationwide injunction blocking part of President Donald Trump’s executive order on mail-in ballots lifted the decision, removing the last legal hold on the order. The judge cited the Supreme Court’s ruling that lawsuits challenging the order were brought prematurely. (The decision)

3. The Secret Service placed three officials on administrative leave amid an internal investigation into potential misconduct. The basis of the investigation is unknown, but the three officials do not work in law enforcement roles at the agency. (The suspensions)

4. A circuit court judge struck down a planned ballot question in Maryland that would have asked voters whether to approve changes to the state’s redistricting rules. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s (D) office said they are appealing the decision. (The ruling)

5. Russia is reportedly preparing to escalate its attacks on Ukraine as peace negotiations stall. (The report)

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Today’s topic.

The Meta settlement. On Wednesday, Meta Platforms, which owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Threads, reached a settlement with a group of state attorneys general to pay up to $16.7 billion to resolve a case over alleged harms to children caused by its social media apps. The company also agreed to implement safeguards designed to mitigate excessive use of Facebook and Instagram by minors.

Back up: In 2023, 33 states sued Meta, alleging that the company had “repeatedly misled the public about the substantial dangers of its Social Media Platforms” and concealed how its products were harming children. The suit claimed that Meta harvests young users’ data for targeted advertising; it also said that features like recommendation algorithms, visual filters, and disruptive audiovisual notifications “are harmful to young users’ mental and physical health.”

Meta’s trial began on August 18 in Oakland, California, and the company said in a filing that it could pay up to $1.4 trillion in damages if it lost. California Deputy Attorney General Megan O’Neill said in her opening statement that Meta “knew a lot about kids’ brains” and would attempt to “hook the users, hold them for as long as they can, harvest their data, and then hide the truth from the public when making public statements.” Former Meta executive Arturo Béjar testified that the company had conducted research into safety issues related to young users but scrapped many of the subsequent recommendations.

Lawyers for Meta highlighted the “meaningful” evidence that the company has prioritized young users’ safety and implemented a litany of features to address concerns about its platforms. In a separate statement, the company said, “We’ve listened to parents, worked with experts and law enforcement, and conducted in-depth research to understand the issues that matter most.”

Wednesday’s settlement resolves various state-level litigations against Meta, though the company still faces lawsuits from individuals and school districts. Separately, it was ordered in a civil suit earlier this year to pay close to $1 billion in fines for failing to warn the public about dangers its platforms posed to children.

In a statement, Meta said that it will add new restrictions to minors’ use of its platforms as part of the settlement. Those include screen time limits, new parental controls blocking access between midnight and 6 AM, and muting notifications during school hours. The company also called on TikTok and YouTube to implement similar measures, saying, “These protections will only be truly effective if we work with our peers.” 30% of the settlement — approximately $5.3 billion — is contingent on TikTok and YouTube adding these restrictions and matching that total in payments to support youth online safety initiatives.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the settlement “addresses the concerns at the core of our lawsuit and institutes real change, real transparency, and real enforceable protections for children on Facebook and Instagram.”

Views from the left and right on the settlement are below. After that, Executive Editor Isaac Saul gives his take.

What the left is saying.

The left is mixed, with some saying the settlement will positively impact teens.

Others suggest lawsuits are a sub-optimal strategy for regulating social media.

Still others lament the relatively small financial penalty.

In Bloomberg, Dave Lee said Meta “finally [did] the right thing for teens.”

“Make no mistake, while the amount that the company agreed to pay to settle a lawsuit brought by several states — up to $18 billion — is large, it is dwarfed in significance by the long-tail positive effects this so-called Big Tobacco moment will have on the well-being of teens,” Lee wrote. “Daily time limits; no notifications during school hours; autoplay disabling; non-algorithmic feeds; a midnight to 6 AM lockout, to pick a few. Even better are age-gating measures to block underage users and further protect teens.”

“Meta shouldn’t receive too much credit. After all, it was only after losing bellwether addiction cases, with several more still lingering, that executives suddenly found it within themselves to agree on settings for Meta’s apps that by all accounts should have been the default long ago,” Lee said. “This settlement is tangible progress and proof that a well-constructed case can bring accountability to technology companies… Meta, for all its faults, and under obvious duress, has produced an impactful and technically feasible list of ways to finally start to put things right.”

In The American Prospect, Ryan Cooper asked “is this social media’s Big Tobacco moment?”

“Over the years, I have become firmly convinced that social media, at least in its current Big Tech–dominated form, is a gravely toxic institution,” Cooper wrote. “Causing mental health problems among youth is not even close to the worst thing these companies have done. There is strong evidence that smartphones and social media are major drivers behind increased loneliness, the worldwide decline in coupling and birth rates, as well as the global surge in racism and fascism.”

“In many ways a lawsuit is a highly suboptimal way to regulate anything, including social media companies,” Cooper said. “But with astronomical penalties being proposed and the possibility of structural remedies — in other words, Meta having to change design features in Facebook and Instagram that are known to addict people — the outcome might end up a fair bit better than a cost of doing business. And with our ever more paralyzed Congress and hypertrophied court system, lawsuits are often the only way to get anything like accountability.”

In Newsweek, Shane Croucher called the settlement “a grim bargain.”

“The tell came immediately from the stock market. Meta shares rose 4.4% in premarket trading Wednesday as the company agreed to a proposed settlement worth up to $16.68 billion over child-safety claims. It’s a reaction that captures the somewhat perverse economics of penalizing one of America’s richest companies,” Croucher wrote. “The social media giant’s latest financial numbers explain why investors could see relief where everyone else sees a punishing bill.”

“In the second quarter alone, the company reported $60.801 billion in revenue and $15.848 billion in net income… Almost $17 billion amounts to only a little more than three months of Meta’s recent earnings. Pocket change, really,” Croucher said. “American corporate power has reached a scale at which $16.68 billion can sound historic and yet still entirely affordable. Profitable even, for shareholders who just enjoyed a 4.4% bounce in their Meta holding. All on the backs of our children.”

What the right is saying.

The right is also mixed, with some advocating for personal responsibility over targeting tech companies.

Others say Meta’s platform changes won’t adequately address social media addiction.

Still others support the outcome of the settlement.

In The American Spectator, Steven Greenhut wrote “it’s time to stop viewing innovations as public nuisances and start taking responsibility for our own lives.”

“That’s some moxie, to blame a single company for damaging the mental health of 73-million American minors,” Greenhut said. “This sounds like suing auto manufacturers for including features — heated seats, automatic transmissions, adaptive cruise control and satellite radio — that encourage people to drive. After all, nearly 37,000 Americans died in vehicle collisions in 2025, so the manufacturers must be to blame for designing cars in a way that makes them comfortable and enticing enough to spend hours at a time on the road.”

“At some point Americans — and our court system — need to act like adults and recognize that every technological advancement offers costs and benefits,” Greenhut wrote. “Regarding social media and children, tech companies have provided endless tools for parents to control their kids’ usage. Our entire system of government is based on the idea that individuals and families are responsible for their own behavior, so it’s unclear why the latest media trends should cause us to abandon that sound principle.”

In Fox News, Jonathan Turley argued “social media addiction will easily outlast Meta’s [settlement].”

“It is doubtful that these ‘fixes’ will actually fix the problem. Social media is enormously popular with adults and children alike. It is also ubiquitous and accessible, particularly for tech-savvy kids. The burden will remain with parents regarding access to and use of social media, not the company,” Turley wrote. “The line between a popular and an ‘addictive’ product is fairly subjective. It was hard to see where the line would have been drawn in this litigation.”

“Social media remains one of the most transformative inventions in history, including as a powerful tool for free speech and political discourse. That popularity comes at a price,” Turley said. “Meta did not create these social costs alone. We all did… This settlement will not erase those social costs any more than the tobacco settlement erased cancer or the opiate settlement erased addiction. The ultimate child-protection regulation will remain parents monitoring and educating their own children.”

The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote about “Meta’s sensible social-media settlement.”

“This summer, the four AGs suggested damages could run as high as $1.4 trillion, though they later walked back their demand to some $200 billion. That’s still more than three times Meta’s profit last year. Why did nearly all states agree to settle for so much less?” the board said. “One reason may be that even if the AGs had prevailed at trial, their theories were vulnerable on appeal. Litigation would have dragged on for years.”

“An advantage of settling is states will get money pronto with few constraints on how it can be spent. The settlement also includes platform changes that go beyond what the AGs might have obtained by a court order,” the board wrote. “The ironic result is that teens in Florida and New Mexico won’t benefit from Meta’s platform changes. Meta’s settlement won’t cure teens’ mental ailments, but it will do more good than years of further litigation.”

My take.

Isaac Saul

Executive Editor

I see this settlement as unambiguously good.

Meta’s payout is much less important than its agreed-to platform changes.

Furthermore, we achieved this result without trampling on open-internet principles.

Reminder: This is where we share a personal opinion. If you have feedback, criticism or compliments, leave a comment on the website or reply to this email.

Finally, some good news.

For years, Meta has been happy to go to the mat in defending its platform — rarely settling or admitting any wrongdoing. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been willing to answer tough questions before Congress, and he’s postured as someone confident that the bad things people have said about his company are wrong. At the same time, he cozied up to the White House in a manner that suggests he thought he’d earn his enterprise some political (and perhaps legal) cover.

Meta has rabidly defended itself both in actual court and in the court of public opinion. It’s fought lawsuits at the state level for years, and while it has lost some, it has not backed down. Meanwhile, any changes to Facebook or Instagram inspired by those challenges have been marginal. Hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of fines have not moved Meta to implement the overhauls it may implement now, and use of its platforms has continued to grow all the while, despite public outcry about what screen-time and social-media addictions are doing to our society (especially young people). Damaging news articles showing that Meta employees understood the harm caused by the company’s apps barely made a blip on either its stock price or its growth.

The $16.7 billion settlement is the top-line number generating most of the headlines, and understandably so. That’s nearly one third of the social media giant’s entire profit from 2025. It’s an incredible sum — one of the largest state consumer protection settlements in U.S. history — but it’s hardly the most important consequence of this agreement.

What really matters are the platform changes, which seem designed to actually address the problem — I’d call them “earnest,” even if Meta was dragged into this kicking and screaming. They constitute some of the most significant product restrictions the company has ever rolled out: A two-hour daily combined time limit for teens, a block on the app late at night, and muted notifications during school hours are all meaningful. Facebook and Instagram thrive on engagement. Time on screen. Scrolling. Dopamine hits. Without it, the market value of their product plummets. Meta is resolving this lawsuit by doing something that is likely to hurt its bottom line.

Before writing today’s piece, I spoke to a former Meta software engineer who worked on developing some of the company’s safety tools. He said these features are genuinely good at predicting age signals that can identify under-18 users, but that teens are “so smart” and adept at avoiding restrictions (for instance, he noted, some kids would change the time zones on their phones to get around quiet-hour restrictions they tested). He added that Meta faced the possibility of these apps being all-out banned for under-18 users, and that these restrictions will only apply to U.S.-based users — so, for Meta, it could have been much worse.

Still, even holding the view that all people (not just teens) should generally avoid apps like Instagram, he described the two-hour time limit as “huge,” and said he’d been “shocked” at how many hours teen users spent on apps like Instagram. Despite the possibility that teens will just go to other apps, he felt this settlement was a major step forward.

Other apps do complicate things. At this point, few people would argue that less screen time is a bad thing, but the reality is that neither Facebook nor Instagram is the most popular social media app among teens. A much larger percentage of teens use YouTube and TikTok, and about as many use Snapchat; and once they’re there, teens tend to spend longer amounts of time on those platforms.

This might be why, as part of its settlement, Meta has tried to blunt the force of the competitive disadvantage. I can’t recall ever seeing a settlement structure like this before: 30% ($5.3 billion) of the roughly $18 billion Meta is pledging is contingent on YouTube and TikTok — two companies which were not named in this suit — implementing their own time limits and night-time use restrictions for teens. Both companies would also have to match the $5.3 billion settlement.

After announcing the settlement, Meta took out full-page ads in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post urging their competitors to follow its lead.

Will this peer pressure work? I’m skeptical, but I appreciate the effort. Maybe this is Meta’s way of ensuring it won’t ever have to pay out the full cost of the fine. Maybe, the platform executives genuinely want to rein in screen time use for teenagers given everything we’ve learned over the last decade. Most likely, of course, the company recognizes that if YouTube and TikTok are available while Meta isn’t, teens will just use those platforms instead and leave Meta in the dust. In other words: The structure of the settlement is Zuckerberg’s insurance policy.

Whatever happens next, Meta did this to itself. They’re settling because they faced damning evidence of willful negligence. A former top Meta safety engineer testified that he had warned executives about its algorithm showing graphic violence and content from sexual predators to teens, and those executives turned a blind eye. Numerous news reports, internal leaks, and previous court cases have established that Meta knew their product was harming kids, especially young girls who were developing eating disorders, and opted to leave them as-is. We aren’t just learning about this in the public, either — we’ve known about it for five years.

Perhaps most importantly, Meta is facing accountability within the legal limits of Section 230, a rule that shields tech companies from liability for content published by users on their platforms. A lot of people have long argued that Section 230 was an impediment to accountability. I’ve said the opposite: That it is an important guardrail that protects an open and free internet, and that attacking it is a shortsighted way to go after these platforms. Many of the previous legal attacks on social media companies either disregarded or aimed to dismantle it. This one, though, circumvented it: Rather than argue that users were causing harm on their platforms and Meta was doing nothing, the states argued that Meta’s platform’s features themselves were harmful, that it had information about those harms, and that it misled the public and legislators about them.

This line of legal attack was appropriate and apparently effective. Not only did it just result in a massive settlement, but it put other platforms on notice without destroying a core concept of the free and open internet — which is separating accountability for platforms from the accountability for what users do on those platforms. Plus, plus, plus.

I find the full scope of this picture actually encouraging, in almost every way. While the details of the case are hard to read, given the damage that’s been done, the upside now is real: Big changes are coming to Meta. Meaningful sums of money are being paid out. Increased pressure is coming for other platforms (like YouTube and TikTok). Awareness about the harms of screen time for kids is spreading. And we’re not sacrificing a bedrock principle of the internet to make these gains.

The tech backlash is here, and I — for one — am ready to embrace it.

Staff dissent.

Editor Audrey Moorehead and

Associate Editor Carina Pacheco

We don’t share Isaac’s overly optimistic perspective on the settlement for several reasons. First, we worry that the financial penalty on Meta — roughly $17 billion — is a drop in the bucket relative to its $1.4 trillion market capitalization.

We also aren’t sold on the efficacy of Meta’s new limitations. Early studies of age-verification requirements imposed in Australia show that they’re easily circumvented. Furthermore, the effect of Meta’s changes will be limited if the same measures aren’t taken by YouTube and TikTok — and even if the “big 3” companies align on platform restrictions, many teens will still find a way to get their social media fix.

The 1998 Big Tobacco settlement may be a model for more effective consequences: State attorneys general secured over $200 billion from the four largest tobacco companies, imposed heavy restrictions on advertising, and forced the companies to raise the prices on their products. Trying to prevent young people from forming a social media habit, just as we did with smoking, may be far more effective in reducing its harms to teens and adults.

Yes, social media giants are to blame for designing algorithms intended to distract, numb, and addict users. But we’re wary of the efficacy of any company, state or federal policy to impact screen-time use, and talk about imposing government consequences on social media companies just obscures the real problem: That we must accept more personal accountability. The only viable solution to the social media crisis is to stop using these platforms at their current scale. That leaves the major burden on the individual; adults must evaluate, as honestly as possible, what a reasonable relationship with screens looks like for their children and for themselves.

Take the survey: What new safety measures will be most effective? Let us know.

Disagree? That’s okay. Our opinion is just one of many. Write in and let us know why, and we’ll consider publishing your feedback.

Your questions, answered.

Q: Why is the turmoil about Flock cameras so different from the situation of the ubiquitous cameras in Great Britain?

— Christine from Fort Wayne, IN

Tangle: As we wrote about last week, Flock Safety operates the largest network of Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) in the United States, with approximately 127,000 cameras across the country accessible to a network of law enforcement agencies.

The situation in the United Kingdom is different. An estimated 4–6 million closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras are operating in the UK, or roughly 700 cameras per 10,000 people. This figure contributes to the popular understanding that the UK has an anomalously vast surveillance state, or that it could even be the most surveilled country in the world. But its per capita figures put the country at 5th, behind Pakistan, India, the United States, and China (in that order). Really, the United Kingdom doesn’t have a unique CCTV presence, and neither does England — London does.

Just shy of one million CCTV cameras operate in London, making it the most surveilled city in the world outside of China. A major differentiator between London’s cameras and those in Chinese cities, however, is that they are private and decentralized. The vast majority of CCTV cameras are owned and operated by private businesses that do not share their data or provide a searchable database to police by default (although police can request footage from private cameras to assist in investigating a crime). This is similar to how private cameras operate in the U.S. — but it’s different from Flock cameras, which operate as part of a searchable nationwide network.

About 600 of London’s cameras are managed by various government entities, and the rules governing their data are quite different. These Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras exist not just in London but throughout the country, and, as their name suggests, they are similar to Flock’s ALPRs. The UK’s ANPRs record vehicle information and save their data to the National ANPR Database, where it is saved for up to 12 months and accessible to police with few restrictions.

In essence, then, the difference between the UK’s cameras and Flock cameras in the U.S. is a matter of size and scope. In the United Kingdom, London is home to a lot of private cameras, while a small but powerful network of government-operated cameras stores data in a database law enforcement can access relatively freely and for an extended period. In the United States, Flock cameras operate broadly across the country and preserve their data for 7–30 days, depending on the jurisdiction.

To learn more about Flock cameras, check out our latest YouTube video.

Want to have a question answered in the newsletter? You can reply to this email (it goes straight to our inbox) or fill out this form.

Numbers.

4.8 hours. The average number of hours that U.S. children aged 13–18 spent on screen media per day in 2021, according to a 2023 Gallup study.

5.3 hours. The average number of hours teenage girls spent on social media apps.

4.4 hours. The average number of hours teenage boys spent on social media apps.

41%. The percentage of teens with five or more hours of daily social media use who rate their mental health as “poor” or “very poor,” according to a 2023 Gallup poll.

32% and 9%. The percentage of teens who said social media had a mostly positive and mostly negative effect on their lives, respectively, according to a 2022 Pew Research Center study.

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The extras.

One year ago today we covered President Trump’s attempt to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.

The most clicked link in our last regular newsletter was our new video on Flock cameras.

Nothing to do with politics: Roger Federer turns back the clock at the US Open.

Our last survey: 3,261 readers responded to our survey on voting by mail in the 2026 elections, with 52% saying they are very likely to cast a mail-in ballot. “I’ve been voting by mail since I first joined the military almost 50 years ago. It wasn’t a problem for anyone then, why is it a problem now?” one respondent said. “I always vote in person and believe that everyone should. I also believe it should be a national holiday,” said another.

Have a nice day.

Gelato the kitten suffered a spinal injury, and his legs couldn’t support his weight. Fortunately for him, he arrived at the right place: Cincinnati Animal CARE. The shelter’s staff named him and noticed that he was motivated to stand up and play, but none of their existing mobility devices were small enough for Gelato. So shelter staff got creative, using everyday items to build him a mobility device. They used wooden rulers, zip ties, tape, and — most crucially — two Hot Wheels cars. According to veterinary assistant lead Mallory Smith, Gelato has gained strength in his legs and even begun to bear his own weight, thanks to his new custom set of wheels. Local 12 News has the story.

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Plus, how surveillance differs between the U.S. and the UK.

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Plus, how surveillance differs between the U.S. and the UK.