Meta Apparently Seeks to Spread Settlement Pain to Its Competitors—With Snapchat Conspicuously Absent

Meta is reportedly about to pressure its competitors hard to join it in limiting its platform’s functionality for young people. The New York Times’ Mike Isaac says tomorrow in multiple major U.S. newspapers, Meta will publish what it calls “An open letter to TikTok and YouTube to join us in supporting teens.” On Wednesday, after the ordeal of a high-profile trial that went on for over a week, Meta arrived at a $12.1 billion settlement that also comes with potentially costly changes to its apps. The changes are obviously the more painful concessions—so painful that Meta is evidently eager to take steps to spread the pain to other companies, even though, in a fascinating and creative legal flourish, spreading the pain could result in Meta forking over more money, not less. But intriguingly, the proposed settlement says that if a triumvirate of competitors joins Meta in restricting teens, the monetary part of the settlement would be increased. Perhaps for that reason, Meta doesn’t mention one part of that triumvirate: Snap. The Snapchat parent company’s non-participation in the teen protection effort would potentially save Meta billions. Gizmodo reached out to Meta for comment on this