Meta was ordered to pay $18 billion in damages, yet the stock price was up 4.4% before the bell. This isn’t “bad news is already priced in”—it’s the product rules being rewritten.
The settlement isn’t just about money: users aged 13–17 can only use the service for 2 hours per day; access is blocked from midnight to 6 a.m.; like counts are hidden by default; filters are disabled. These are hard constraints written into law, effective for 10 years.
Compare this to the 1998 tobacco industry settlement, after which smoking rates were cut in half. The social media industry’s golden growth model may start to pivot from this day forward.
But the real question is: if teens’ time is restricted, can Meta’s ad-revenue model still hold up? Or does regulation, in effect, help it shed the least profitable users?
The settlement isn’t just about money: users aged 13–17 can only use the service for 2 hours per day; access is blocked from midnight to 6 a.m.; like counts are hidden by default; filters are disabled. These are hard constraints written into law, effective for 10 years.
Compare this to the 1998 tobacco industry settlement, after which smoking rates were cut in half. The social media industry’s golden growth model may start to pivot from this day forward.
But the real question is: if teens’ time is restricted, can Meta’s ad-revenue model still hold up? Or does regulation, in effect, help it shed the least profitable users?