Meta has agreed to an $18bn settlement with 29 US states over claims its platforms addict young users, but the deal leaves a stark question unanswered: what happens to the rest of the world? The agreement, reached on Wednesday, marks a watershed moment for American regulators but offers little comfort to victims of algorithmic harm in countries from Kenya to the Netherlands, where separate legal battles grind on without resolution.
For Abrham Meareg, the settlement feels like a distant thunderclap. His father, a chemistry professor in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, was shot dead outside his family home in October 2021, during the country’s brutal civil war. Facebook’s recommendation engine had, according to Meareg and the nonprofit Foxglove, actively surfaced posts calling for his murder — complete with photographs and his home address. The case was filed in 2022. Nearly four years on, it has yet to be heard.
A Victory for America, a Blank Cheque for Meta
The US settlement is being hailed as a landmark. California’s attorney general called it a triumph that would “make a world of difference for children and their families.” Under the terms, Meta will impose time limits on minors’ use of Facebook and Instagram and block overnight access for young users. The company will also alter how personalised feeds work for under-18s.
Yet read closely and the deal reveals just how much ground Meta conceded — and how much it kept. The $18bn figure, while staggering, falls well short of the $200bn the states originally sought. It is a fraction of the $1.4tn Meta itself flagged in court filings as a worst-case scenario. Mark Zuckerberg, the architect of the empire, never stepped into a witness box. The company’s share price climbed in the hours after the announcement.
For a firm that fought the proceedings with every legal weapon at its disposal, this outcome reads less like a reckoning and more like a calculated cost of doing business. Meta caved after just four days of trial — a blink of an eye in the annals of corporate litigation. That speed tells its own story.
The Algorithm That Kills: What the Settlement Does Not Touch
The settlement’s concessions centre largely on children’s usage patterns. But the deeper rot — the recommendation engine itself — remains largely untouched. Meta’s algorithm decides what billions of users see. It watches a teenager linger on diet content and serves up anorexia influencers. It notices young men searching for bodybuilding and points them toward Andrew Tate. It amplified calls for ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya in Myanmar. And it shaped the information environment that helped deliver Donald Trump’s election victory.
Arturo Béjar, a former Facebook engineer and whistleblower, delivered a withering assessment of the settlement’s scope. He compared it to saying: “Well, you can smoke as many cigarettes as you can in two hours a day. It doesn’t make the cigarettes any safer.”
The algorithm is the engine of Meta’s entire business model. It keeps users scrolling. It serves advertisements. It generates billions in revenue. Tweaking it for American minors does nothing to address how it operates in war zones, fragile democracies, or communities with sparse moderation infrastructure. In east Africa, content moderation is thin. In Myanmar, it was practically absent during the genocide. The algorithm does not distinguish between a teenager in California and a student in Bahir Dar.
Cases Around the World: Justice Delayed, Denied, or Dodged
In Kenya, Meareg’s lawsuit survived years of legal manoeuvring by Meta’s army of lawyers. The high court ruled the case could proceed, and it may be heard within the next year. Rosa Curling of Foxglove said the company’s legal team had “spent years trying to prevent this important case being heard, thankfully without success.” She added pointedly that the US news might signal “that Mark Zuckerberg’s time is finally up.”
In the Netherlands, Repro Uncensored is pursuing Meta over alleged discrimination against queer accounts. Martha Dimitratou, the group’s executive director, insisted the next phase of accountability “must address not only addictive design but algorithms, discriminatory moderation and automated decision-making.” She argued these systems “shape civic participation and democracy,” and the companies behind them “must be held accountable globally.”
Meanwhile, the European Commission has already issued a charge sheet accusing Meta of contributing to “unhealthy habits and compulsive use” through features like infinite scroll. That investigation, launched in 2024, could push Brussels toward deeper reforms — including restrictions on the personal algorithm itself.
But Meta has shown it is far less cowed by regulators outside the United States. Earlier this year, the company successfully dodged a class-action lawsuit brought by Rohingya refugees over its alleged role in the Myanmar genocide. It can also count on the Trump administration’s help in resisting any EU regulation that threatens its European operations.
Meta declined to comment on either Meareg’s case or Repro Uncensored’s proceedings. When confronted earlier with whistleblower allegations that its platforms fuelled violence in Ethiopia and Myanmar, the company pushed back forcefully, calling the claims “just not true.” Regarding Meareg specifically, Meta pointed to its local staff in Ethiopia, saying they work to “catch violating content.”
Why it Matters
The US settlement proves that accountability is possible when political will and legal firepower align. But it also exposes a brutal two-tier system of justice in the digital age. A company worth hundreds of billions can absorb an $18bn fine and watch its share price rise, while a grieving son in Kenya waits years for his day in court. The algorithmic machinery that radicalises, discriminates, and — in the worst cases — helps kill operates globally, yet the rules that constrain it remain firmly territorial. Until governments outside Washington possess the leverage to force meaningful change, Meta’s settlement will stand as a monument to American regulatory power and a monument to global impunity — both at once.
