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

Meta has agreed to a settlement worth $16.7 billion to 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. 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 YouTu…