"Meta on Wednesday reached a landmark settlement with 47 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories, agreeing to pay up to $17.1 billion in penalties..."

"... and make major changes to its products over claims it endangered children with addictive social media platforms. In a dramatic capitulation, the owner of Facebook and Instagram agreed to the financial penalties for violating federal child privacy and states’ consumer protection laws, the states announced. Meta also agreed to limit how long teenagers can spend on its platforms and to bans on features that stoke mental health issues, striking at the heart of the company’s business of engagement for advertising.... Meta still faces numerous other lawsuits from school districts and individuals.... 'Meta wouldn’t settle unless it sees the writing on the wall and feels really exposed,' said Nora Freeman Engstrom, a law professor at Stanford University."

I'm reading "Meta to Pay Up to $17.1 Billion in Landmark Settlement Over Social Media Addiction Claims/The social media giant settled with 47 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories, and agreed to make major changes to its products over claims its platforms endangered children" (NYT gift link).

It used to seem like a joke — a prank — to get A.I. talking to A.I.

But these days:

"Students are writing essays with ChatGPT, and teachers are using A.I. to grade them. Workers are sending lengthy A.I.-generated emails to colleagues, who are responding with walls of chatbot text of their own. A.I podcast hosts are holding forth with A.I. podcast guests on topics like gas prices, the Iran war — and artificial intelligence.... In March, Meta acquired a social network designed for bots to talk to one another.... There was a telecom executive who had noticed customers sending A.I. voice agents to argue with his company’s A.I. customer service system. There was a man who used a chatbot to draft messages on a dating app to a woman who seemed to be doing the exact same thing...."

From "Chatbots Are Pushing Us Toward a Post-Human Internet/In matters of work, school and even romance, we turn to A.I. chatbots. But what happens when the bots begin talking to one another?" (NYT gift link).

"Death is different on the internet."

Writes Julia Angwin, in "Meta Is Dying" (NYT).

Lifeless companies like AOL and Yahoo are still technically with us. You can visit their websites.... But they are, as the kids say, peak cringe. Many teens wouldn’t be caught dead with an AOL account, a Yahoo email address — or a Facebook profile.... 

"Meta’s new gizmos are ordinary-looking Ray-Bans and Oakleys that have been juiced to the gills with hidden technology..."

"... Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, two tiny speakers, five microphones, a wide-angle camera.... [T]he real selling point is A.I. — an opportunity to chitchat with a disembodied superintelligence that can see and hear everything you do... So what do my miraculous sunglasses tell me? Many things. They inform me, in the voice of Princess Anna from 'Frozen,' that my dog is a golden retriever mix (he is not) and that a tree I am looking at is probably an oak (it is not). They tell me to walk north when I know I should be walking south. One afternoon, on a sunny stroll, I stop to admire a bright red cardinal singing its heart out in a tree. 'Hey, Meta,' I say. 'What kind of bird is that chirping in the tree?' My sunglasses make their little ding-dong noise, analyzing the world. Finally, they speak. 'I don’t see a bird in the tree or hear any chirping,' they say. I point directly at the bird, which is still chirping. 'I don’t see a bird in the tree where you’re pointing,' my sunglasses say, cheerfully. 'Just bare branches and sky.'..."

Writes Sam Anderson, in "I Feel So Sorry for My A.I. Sunglasses/Plenty of people hate Mark Zuckerberg’s superintelligent, supercharged spectacles. I was ready to hate them, too" (NYT).

There's your future — just bare branches and sky

"Here’s a thought experiment: imagine Instagram, but every single post is a video of paint drying."

"Same infinite scroll. Same autoplay. Same algorithmic recommendations. Same notification systems. Is anyone addicted? Is anyone harmed? Is anyone suing? Of course not. Because infinite scroll is not inherently harmful. Autoplay is not inherently harmful. Algorithmic recommendations are not inherently harmful. These features only matter because of the content they deliver. The 'addictive design' does nothing without the underlying user-generated content that makes people want to keep scrolling.... If every editorial decision about how to present third-party content is now a 'design choice' subject to product liability, Section 230 protects effectively nothing...."

Writes Mike Masnick, in "Everyone Cheering The Social Media Addiction Verdicts Against Meta Should Understand What They’re Actually Cheering For" (TechDirt).

I found that because David French links to it in "Don’t Cheer Too Hard for the Facebook Verdicts." French writes: "It’s quite possible that these verdicts will be overturned or heavily modified on appeal. But that process can take years. In the meantime, there will almost certainly be many more trials and many more verdicts that will put social media companies under pressure to increase their own censorship and their own controls over free speech online."

"It’s easy to look at $3 million in damages ordered to be paid by a company that makes billions every quarter and say, 'does this really matter?'"

"But if only a fraction of one per cent of teenagers in the United States are impacted at this serious level, that ends up being a trillion dollars of damages, not even considering punitive damages."

Said Frances Haugen, quoted in "Facebook whistleblower: Meta now faces a Big Tobacco-style ‘reckoning’ exclusive/In 2021, Frances Haugen revealed her former employer was getting users hooked on damaging social media. Now she tells The Times: 'A thousand flowers will bloom from this'" (London Times).

"They say history doesn’t repeat, but often it rhymes,' she told the Times. 'The rhyming beats between this and tobacco are just too loud for nothing to happen now. All other industries that have had the level of societal impact that Meta has had have faced a reckoning much sooner.... I think Meta understands that if they have to stop serving under-16-year-olds — or maybe even under-18-year-olds depending on how over barrel they end up being — the future of their company is over.... I am not a prohibitionist when it comes to this.... But I believe in the power of negotiation. These platforms have basically felt like they were able to negotiate from a position of strength. Now, they have to sit down at the table and discuss how to provide their services more responsibly."

"The State Department is taking decisive action against five individuals who have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints they oppose."

Said Marco Rubio, quoted in "'Witch hunt': Ex-EU commissioner Breton denounces U.S. visa ban targeting ‘censorship'" (CNBC). 

The Trump administration imposed visa bans on Thierry Breton, a former European Union commissioner behind the Digital Services Act (DSA), and four anti-disinformation campaigners, accusing them of censoring U.S. social media platforms.... The DSA forces tech giants like Google and Meta to police illegal content more aggressively, or face hefty fines.... 

Breton... wrote on X: “Is McCarthy’s witch hunt back?” He added: “As a reminder: 90% of the European Parliament — our democratically elected body — and all 27 Member States unanimously voted the DSA. To our American friends: Censorship isn’t where you think it is."

I can't find anything by Breton explaining his idea of "where" censorship really is. Try to persuade us, Thierry. Give us a chance to argue with you. If you've got a good idea put it up for sale in the marketplace of ideas. Prove us wrong.

ADDED: Breton seems to be giving priority to whatever the majority decides to do. We Americans have traditionally put individual rights above majoritarian choice. I suspect that when he says "Censorship isn’t where you think it is," he means it's never censorship when it's done democratically. Believe that, and you don't believe in individual rights. 

"All told, the company has lost more than $70 billion... as Zuckerberg has failed to convince the public of the high-fidelity virtual spaces he long insisted we’d be choosing to spend most of our time in."

"Now, as Bloomberg reports, the company’s executives are eying gigantic budget cuts, as high as 30 percent, for the teams responsible for its Meta Horizon Worlds product and Quest VR headset — another nail in the coffin for Zuckerberg’s obsession that has been a major thorn in the sides of investors for years now.... Besides, Meta and Zuckerberg have now found their next obsession: artificial intelligence. The company has committed to spending an astronomical $72 billion on AI this year — roughly as much as the company’s lost on the metaverse, coincidentally...."

From "Zuckerberg Basically Giving Up on Metaverse After Renaming Entire Company 'Meta'" (Futurism).

Here's my reaction to Meta when it began in 2021: "Eh. I'm not making a new tag for this." 

"The largest group dedicated to 'barefoot living' in the UK has been forced to bring in strict rules after being infiltrated by people with a sexual 'foot fetish.'"

"The Facebook group, which has more than 700 members, was set up for people who spend their lives without shoes, from going to the supermarket to embarking on outdoor hikes.... '[T]his is not a foot fetish group,' adding: 'Nothing against you but it’s not that kind of group.' New rules have also been given to existing members about the sharing of photos after fears of infiltration. They include a ban on photos of 'just feet'.... 'We all know what feet look like!'"

From "Fetishists infiltrate group promoting barefoot living/Administrators of the Facebook group introduce vetting and image rules to discourage people with a sexual attraction to feet" (London Times).

Facebook keeps pushing this meme at me — a quote from Willie Nelson, supposedly referencing Charlie Kirk.

"If you want people to have kind words when you pass, you should say kind words when you’re alive." And then, it says "After facing backlash, Willie Nelson added: 'And I’ll stand behind this. Be kind, now more than ever."

That didn't sound right. Do most people just believe these stories that are stuck in between posts from actual friends and family? My basic reaction is to scroll quickly past anything that has a celebrity commenting about another celebrity, but for this one, because Facebook kept serving it to me, I went to Grok for a fact check. Was this quote in any actual news sources?

"Last winter, I did the noble thing and got off social media. I lacked the inner strength to delete my accounts fully, so..."

"... I settled for removing apps from my phone and enlisting my husband to change my Facebook password. It worked. I stopped scrolling and liking and generally monitoring the lives of people I do not actually know. I felt better — less inadequate, more present, vaguely morally superior. The problem is it’s July now, and I just returned from a really great vacation...."

Writes Rachel Feintzeig, in "If I Don’t Post About My Vacation, Did It Even Happen?" (NYT)(free-access link).

What's the point of depriving yourself in pursuit of a feeling of vague moral superiority?! Why not confront your feeling of inadequacy and flip it into something positive? You're not "better" because you travel or because you don't travel and because you scroll or post in social media or because you don't. 

Now, this lady — "a journalist at work on a book about staring down 40" — was able to get the story of her "really great vacation" published in the New York Times, so the answer to whether it feels as though the vacation really happened if she didn't post about it in social media is clearly YES!!!

But what is this "better" feeling that you want? Feintzeig is "staring down 40," and it was half a lifetime ago that I stared down 40. When I was that young — it really is quite young! — I was working out the difference between what it looked like everyone in general valued and what it was that I — personally and specifically — truly valued. I don't think the question is whether your vacation seems real if you don't show people photographs. I think the question is: Are you for real?

"When I tell her to cool it, she shrugs me off and says it’s her life, her right."

Writes the man, to the WaPo advice columnist, about his wife who "is one of those people whose entire life is put on display on social media." "Every single thing she experiences or knows about, good or bad, is immediately posted."

The advice columnist tells him not only that there's nothing he can do but also dings him for failing to say "a single positive word about your wife or your relationship in your letter."

I've always liked when newspaper advice columnists resist taking the letter-writer's point of view and sling inferences about something else that might really be going on.

Reminds me of how I read newspaper articles. 

"You can often find the eldest brother of the Successor of the Prince of the Apostles down at the Twisted Fork restaurant in Port Charlotte, Fla., where, on Honky-Tonk Thursdays..."

"... he is most likely boot-scooting along with the rest of the line dancers. His ringtone plays the opening riffs of Led Zeppelin’s 'Immigrant Song.' He incurred $20,000 in roof damage from Hurricane Ian. And until recently, anyone could read his Facebook posts, which included vulgar potshots at Nancy Pelosi and her husband and a pronouncement that supporters of Joseph R. Biden Jr. suffered from a 'mental affliction.'..."

I'm reading "The Pope’s Florida Brother, a MAGA Disciple, Plans to ‘Tone It Down’/Louis Prevost’s Facebook posts — no longer publicly viewable — suggest that he has embraced some of the most common complaints and conspiracy theories of the right" in the NYT. 

The writing is snazzy, but I'm uncomfortable with something so close to doxxing. You're giving a place and time where this man has heretofore enjoyed simple social pleasures, displaying his photograph, and giving your readers reason to feel antagonistic toward him, using Facebook material that he has tried to take private. Why?

But Louis Prevost went on Piers Morgan and talked about the Facebook posts, and he's answering questions from the NYT. "Well, I posted it, and I wouldn’t have posted it if I didn’t kind of believe it," he says.

"It’s a chatbot that encourages people to tap, tap, tap on hand-held small screens as they watch films on a big one."

"Users gain access to exclusive trivia and witticisms in real time (synced with what’s happening in the movie). Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, has positioned Movie Mate as a way 'to get audiences back in theaters.' Nearly 20 percent of moviegoers ages 6 to 17 already send text messages during movies even though it’s against the rules.... Why not try to channel that instinct, Blumhouse argues, toward what is happening on the theater screen?"

I'm reading "Chatting in Movie Theaters Is a No-No. But What About Chatbots? Blumhouse, the horror movie studio, has teamed up with Meta on a chatbot that encourages people to use their phones while watching a movie" (NYT).

In the last moments of the film "Sunset Boulevard," the delusional actress says, "There's nothing else — just us — and the cameras — and those wonderful people out there in the dark." But the phones have taken away the dark. The "wonderful people" are interposing lighted screens between each others' eyes and that screen that used to control the flow of light.

The delusion is over.

It's shocking that a man in this mental condition is President of the United States.

I'm reading "Biden Calls Meta’s Ending of Fact-Checking Program ‘Shameful’/Responding to a question from a reporter, the president said he believed Americans 'want to tell the truth'" in the NYT.

You can see from the headline that the NYT is forefronting something he said that seems like something its readers will agree with. I think it's wrong and deceptive — shameful, really. He doesn't seem to understand the "community notes" approach to dealing with misinformation or the bias problem with the fact-checkers. 

But if you keep reading this article about yesterday's press conference, it gets worse and worse.

"This shows how Mark Zuckerberg is feeling that society is more accepting of those libertarian and right-leaning viewpoints that he’s always had. This is an evolved return to his political origins."

Said Katie Harbath, "chief executive of Anchor Change, a tech consulting firm, who previously worked at Facebook."

Quoted in "Mark Zuckerberg’s Political Evolution, From Apologies to No More Apologies/Meta’s chief executive has stepped away from his mea culpa approach to issues on his platforms and has told people that he wants to return to his original thinking on free speech" (NYT).

Mr. Zuckerberg has long been a pragmatist who has gone where the political winds have blown. He has flip-flopped on how much political content should be shown to Facebook and Instagram users, previously saying social networks should be about fun, relatable content from family and friends but then on Tuesday saying Meta would show more personalized political content.... 

Mr. Zuckerberg was never comfortable with the involvement of outside fact-checkers, academics or researchers in his company, one of the executives said. He now sees many of the steps taken after the 2016 election as a mistake... two executives said.... Those who have known Mr. Zuckerberg for decades describe him as a natural libertarian, who enjoyed reading books extolling free expression and the free market system after he dropped out of Harvard to start Facebook in 2004....

I'd like to think that the idea of freedom of speech won out in the marketplace of ideas, but I can understand how the speech controllers gravitate toward the idea that Zuckerberg was always a right-winger and he's just regressing after faking aspirations to higher values. 

"It’s time to get back to our roots around free expression... We're going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with community notes, similar to X."

"The fact-checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they've created, especially in the U.S...."

Mark Zuckerberg explains in this video posted today:

"What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with differing ideas...."

ADDED: Meta is moving its "trust and safety" and "content moderations" teams out of California and into Texas, where there is "less concern about [their] bias."

AND: Zuckerberg says his company needs to ally with the U.S. government in order to be able to fight the censorship that is coming from foreign governments. It's been "difficult over the past 4 years," because "even the U.S. government has pushed for censorship." "By going after us and other American companies, it has emboldened other governments to go even further. But now, we have the opportunity to restore free expression and I am excited to take it."

This is great! I hope it goes well. I wish I new more about how much of this emerged from recent hobnobbing with Musk and Trump at Mar-a-Lago, but I can see Zuckerberg is smart not to talk about that. His criticism of the Biden administration and response to Trump is plain enough. 

ALSO: Here's how the NYT sums it up:

"Mr. Trump appeals to some Silicon Valley elites because they identify with the man. To them, he is a fellow victim of the state..."

"... unjustly persecuted for his bold ideas. Practically, he is also the shield they need to escape accountability. Mr. Trump may threaten democratic norms and spread disinformation; he could even set off a recession, but he won’t challenge their ability to build the technology they like, no matter the social cost.... Most Americans... blame tech companies for contributing to the mental health crisis among teenagers, political polarization, rampant misinformation and privacy violations. Many of us, reading the evidence about social media’s negative effects on our children, do not want to make the same mistake of failing to create guardrails for new technologies, however promising they may be. Mr. Trump’s tech supporters see it differently. Echoing monopolists of the past, they say they are the victims of zealous progressives who want to overregulate the industry.... But just as we needed rules of the road for cars and safety regulations for planes, we need to manage these new technologies through public policy to ensure we like what they are doing to us, not resign ourselves to letting them run wild...."

Writes Chris Hughes, chair of the Economic Security Project (and a co-founder of Facebook), in "Why Do People Like Elon Musk Love Donald Trump? It’s Not Just About Money" (NYT).

"In public... Mr. Zuckerberg is declining to engage with Washington except when necessary. In private, he has stopped supporting programs..."

"... at his philanthropy that could be perceived as partisan, and he has tamped down employee activism at Meta said [friends, advisers, and executives], who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to do so or did not want to jeopardize their relationships with Mr. Zuckerberg.... 'The political environment, I think I didn’t have much sophistication around, and I think I just fundamentally misdiagnosed the problem,' Mr. Zuckerberg said during a recent interview at a live podcast event in San Francisco. Last month, Mr. Zuckerberg publicly expressed regret around some of his political activity in a letter to Congress. He said that in 2021, the Biden administration 'pressured' Meta into censoring more Covid-19 content than Mr. Zuckerberg felt comfortable with. And he said he would not repeat the contributions he made in 2020 to support electoral infrastructure because the gifts made him appear not 'neutral.' Mr. Zuckerberg’s evolution has drawn comparatively little attention compared to that of tech titans like Elon Musk... But it is also reflective of a larger shift in Silicon Valley, where chief executives have grown frustrated with contentious social issues. Their response has largely been to back away from it."

From "Mark Zuckerberg Is Done With Politics/He was once a backer of liberal causes. Then everyone seemed to turn on him. Now he wants to stay away from politics — if that’s possible" (NYT).

Musk openly supports Trump. Maybe Zuckerberg secretly supports Trump. Wouldn't that look the same as being "done with politics"? There are certainly advantages to hiding one's support for Trump. And we're told he's had 2 one-on-one phone calls with Trump in the last few months.

"Mr. Zuckerberg isn't denying that the government caused some of Meta's censorship decisions. The letter is too carefully drafted..."

"... to say something so obviously untrue.... Mr. Zuckerberg's phrasing... avoids any overt concession that the efforts to influence the company actually caused Meta to suppress speech. The closest the letter comes to admitting causation is Mr. Zuckerberg's assertion that he told his teams at the time that 'we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any Administration in either direction -- and we're ready to push back if something like this happens again.' This sounds like bold defiance. But 'if something like that happens again' suggests that Meta didn't push back when it happened before -- a backhanded admission that government pressure caused Meta to 'compromise.'... Mr. Zuckerberg's caution about causation speaks volumes about his fears (or those of his lawyers) that, if the truth were out, Meta would be legally vulnerable."

Writes Philip Hamburger, in "The ‘Tell’ in Zuckerberg’s Letter to Congress/He neither admits nor denies that Meta bowed to government censorship pressure" (Wall Street Journal).