Mark Zuckerberg Wants to Make Sure His Competitors Share His Pain

The up to $17.1 billion that Meta agreed to pay to 47 states, the District of Columbia and some U.S. territories to settle a three-year-old lawsuit probably won’t sting that much for Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive. The details of the settlement, however, could leave a mark. Meta also agreed to rein in children’s access to its marquee products like Instagram and Facebook, create daily time limits, increase parental controls and cut off access during school hours. That could permanently alter how Meta interacts with its youngest users, the next generation to scroll and click on its various apps, and make it hard for the company to uphold its claim to be the world’s dominant social media company. Zuckerberg has a contingency plan: Level the playing field, so that children can’t just switch to the app of a competitor. If he has to play by new rules, he wants companies like YouTube and TikTok to do the same. Meta built a financial incentive into its deal with the state attorneys general, designed to rope in the other companies.