Zuckerberg Pays Overfunded Mental Health Industry After Meta Harms Kids
Republished with permission from AbleChild.
Mark Zuckerberg is quickly becoming the Anthony Fauci of social media moguls. It wasn’t bad enough that Zuckerberg’s policies at Facebook for trying to influence the 2020 election, including kicking President Donald Trump off the site, yielded no legal or criminal punishments. Rather, Zuckerberg, slimier than a barrel of eels, has recently escaped serious punishment for knowingly and intentionally designing Facebook and Instagram with addictive features to maximize engagement (user time and attention) of underage children for profit.
Just two weeks ago, Zuckerberg agreed to a “landmark” settlement of up $18 billion to resolve a massive federal lawsuit brought by a coalition of U.S. state attorney generals who accused Zuckerberg of design flaws that addicted underage children to Zuckerberg’s social media platforms, leaving them scarred and mentally ill.
Critics argue that the multi-state settlement is nothing more than a slap on the wrist, considering the harm created. AbleChild agrees that the settlement amount is far less than the original $1.4 trillion sought but, frankly, is more concerned about where the nearly $20 billion dollar settlement is headed and for what purposes.
The coalition of 47 states, Washington, D.C. and several territories sued Zuckerberg’s Meta, alleging design practices that, according to internal company communications, executives knew the company’s algorithms were addictive to children but deployed them to maximize profits. Moreover, the lawsuit further alleged that Meta routinely collected data on underage children without parental consent and, ultimately, the suit charges that the algorithmic recommendations exacerbated depression, anxiety, body dysphoria and sleep deprivation in teenagers.
Naturally, whenever depression and anxiety and other alleged mental disorders are mentioned, officialdom finds it necessary to throw money at the mental health establishment. In the case of the Meta settlement, billions will be divided among the states by population size and then funneled into school and community programs like peer support groups, expanding youth psychiatric infrastructures, crisis hotlines and counseling services for children led astray by Meta algorithms.
Local school districts across the country will benefit with settlement money being poured into already over-reaching, intrusive mental health resources to deal with student anxiety, cyberbullying and even classroom distractions. And, New York, which could receive up to $1.1 billion, has revealed that it intends to use its settlement funds to place mental health professionals directly into the classrooms among other mental health initiatives.
Maryland has proposed an Algorithmic Addiction Fund, and it is a dedicated account that bypasses the state’s general fund and rather is funneled directly to the Department of Health to support mental health assessments, crisis hotlines and treatment programs. Connecticut, on the other hand, is estimated to receive between $190 and $265 million of the total settlement and intends to direct those funds to youth mental health infrastructure programs.
AbleChild can’t help but point out that the funds being siphoned into state mental health initiatives is extremely interesting given that evidence was made available in recent state trials that Meta’s algorithms were not designed to support mental health; instead, the algorithms were engineered to optimize kids being online longer, despite explicit internal data showing this approach severely harmed teens.
Rather than integrate mental health protections into its code, Meta’s corporate leadership systematically ignored, buried or downplayed its own internal insights in favor of boosting metrics. In fact, Meta’s own data scientists and researchers spent years studying how its platforms affected teens and those safety employees pitched algorithmic fixes to shield teens, but Meta executives rejected the suggestions. It appears that Zuckerberg was more interested in making money off kids and cared little about how his social media site may have been harming kids.
With all the details provided as to how the settlement will be distributed, it is of interest that there is no information provided in the settlement about the actual numbers of children that may have experienced mental distress because of the algorithms. So, it appears that the billions being provided to states will be available to all children, as no qualifiers have been provided as to who should benefit and how that will be determined.
AbleChild wonders if there is no qualifier to prove a child was harmed by the algorithm and no data available about how many were harmed, why is the money being directed toward state mental health? After all, the federal government is the largest payer of mental health benefits to states through Medicaid and much of that money goes directly to school mental health programs.
To suggest that there are shortages of mental health services in schools is laughable if not outright insulting. Multi-billion-dollar grant programs make up federal funding of mental health programs in schools with nearly five and a half million school-age children receiving mental health benefits each year through Medicaid.
It certainly doesn’t sound like a shortage of mental health for school-age children and, while AbleChild does not support federal funding of mental health in schools, it can’t help but wonder why the taxpayers are on the hook for any portion of mental health benefits as the alleged mental health problems were caused by the explicit approval of Meta executives. In other words, since Marc Zuckerberg created the problem, literally ignoring the harm being created, why should taxpayers have to pay to clean up the Meta founder’s mess?
Furthermore, with all the new money flooding into mental health programs, AbleChild can’t help but ask how many children will be harmed by what will certainly be increased psychiatric diagnosing and drugging because of Zuckerberg’s greed? Who will be on the hook when these children are addicted to prescription drugs? Who will be on the hook when these children have become life-long victims of this new mental health assistance and Zuckerberg’s settlement money is long gone?
Critics of the settlement are right. $18 billion is a pittance compared to the future cost of caring for the children who have become victims of these mental health services. All involved know that once the mental health intervention begins, it doesn’t end when the children leave school. Where will Zuckerberg be then?
AbleChild is a 501(3) C nonprofit organization that has recently co-written landmark legislation in Tennessee, setting a national precedent for transparency and accountability in the intersection of mental health, pharmaceutical practices, and public safety.
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