What Meta’s $17-billion settlement revealed about the harms of social media

Internal documents show Meta knew for years that its youngest users were the most likely to be targeted by bullies, extortionists and sexual predators. Yet the company excluded the majority of those harms from its public reports, designing its metrics so that many of the worst encounters were never captured. The case was a big wake-up call for families, who may not yet know the extent of the horrors children have faced on the apps. Angst over Meta’s public reputation likely played a role in the decision to settle so early, experts said.