Meta Reaches $18 Billion Settlement Over Claims It Harmed Teens

(upbeat music) - Metta has reached an $18 billion settlement over social media's harm to teenagers. And it could mean big changes for how kids use the internet. Plus, the FDA approved a breakthrough drug for one of the deadliest cancers. - In talking to oncologists and researchers, this doesn't seem like something that happens every year or even every decade. And the FBI took down a sprawling Chinese hacking network whose targets included NASA, the Fed, and the Senate. It's Wednesday, August 26th. I'm Sabrina Sidiqi for the Wall Street Journal filling in for Alex Ursula. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. Metta has agreed to an $18 billion settlement with nearly all states in the US over claims that Facebook and Instagram harmed teenagers. It ends a massive federal trial in Oakland, California that was just getting started. As part of the deal, Metta will limit time on its apps to two hours a day for users who are under 18 years old. There's also a nighttime shutdown and a school mode that blocks notifications during class hours. Megan Brubowski, who covers Metta platforms at the Wall Street Journal, has the latest. Megan, why did Metta settle now? Metta has been facing a lot more of these trials and they've lost two big ones already. This was third one and arguably the biggest one that they've had this year. And it could have ended in $200 billion plus dollars of liability for them. - What changes will people actually see on Facebook and Instagram? And how big of a difference could that make in how people use these apps? - There won't be any changes for Metta's adult users on Instagram and Facebook, but for users who are under the age of 18, there's always settings that they're going to have that already exist on an often basis that this is now going to be the default. So having a lot of push notifications disabled, having like counts hidden and it will give teens a little pop up every 15 minutes that they've been using the app and we'll tell them when they've hit an hour and when they've hit 90 minutes, two hours of course being the limit for the day. But other apps might have to make changes too, right? 'Cause this deal has a unique structure. Metta only pays out the full amount if TikTok and YouTube agree to similar restrictions and payments of their own. - When I reached out to both of the companies, neither of them provided the statement to me. So we're not exactly clear on how that went down or if those companies are going to participate in this. Metta is now trying to get TikTok and YouTube to join them in a settlement. Metta has already agreed to. - Megan, at the risk of aging myself, Facebook came out when I was in college and Instagram not long after that. I've been using these apps on a day-to-day basis for almost two decades. So I'm constantly thinking about how my kids will interact with these platforms. How much of an effect could these limits have on the next generation of social media users? - That's like the million dollar question, right? We actually don't know what it looks like to have this more measured relationship with social media. So that's gonna be one of the really interesting things to see play out over the next few years. - That was the Wall Street Journal's Megan Berbrowski. Thank you, Megan. - Thanks for having me. - Elsewhere in tech and video reported another blowout quarter after the market closed. Its sales came to just over $96 billion beating Wall Street expectations. Its profit also topped estimates. But investors sent shares down in after hours trading. For more on the chip makers earnings, go to WSJ.com and we'll have more analysis on tomorrow morning show. And we're exclusively reporting that US officials say they've shut down a big hacking operation tied to China. The hacker is targeted networks at NASA, the Federal Reserve, the Department of Energy and the Senate, as well as power companies and hospitals. The operation hid its tracks on a global network of hacked devices, cloud computing infrastructure, and even clandestine networks. The FBI says a Chinese company has run the group since 2018. The company sells this access to hacked networks and stolen data to China's foreign and military intelligence services. China has previously denied that it engages in hacking. The FDA has approved a new pancreatic cancer drug, RazonQ, from Revolution Medicines. It's the first therapy to target a mutation that's driven a third of all human cancers and stumped researchers for four decades. In a late-stage study, patients on the drug lived more than 13 months, nearly twice as long as those on chemotherapy alone. When presented at the world's largest gathering of cancer researchers last spring, the results drew a nearly minute-long standing ovation. The Wall Street Journal Xavier Martinez joins us to discuss, Xavier, a standing ovation for drug results? That sounds really promising. How big a difference is this treatment expected to make for patients? This is a massive difference for patients with pancreatic cancer. It's one of the fastest-moving and deadliest cancers patients often are given a year or less to live when they're diagnosed. And so even a few months when it comes to pancreatic cancer, that is a world of difference. There was just another big breakthrough on cancer treatment. The results of the trial from Moderna and Merck for a personalized vaccine. Are we entering a new frontier for potential cancer treatments? That certainly seems to be the way that we're going in talking to oncologists and researchers. This doesn't seem like something that happens every year or even every decade. These are sort of personalized medicines. They're more targeted. That's just so different from what we've seen in the past where really the strategy from oncologists was just to pump in toxins and try to just kill cells left and right. That was the Wall Street Journal's Xavier Martinez. Xavier, thank you. Thanks so much. And as for price, Xavier told us after we spoke with him that the pancreatic cancer drug from revolution medicines will cost close to $40,000 a month. Coming up, flash floods tore through Nepal and Tibet, leaving at least 100 people dead and hundreds more missing. We'll have more after the break. In markets, stocks close down slightly lower today. The Dow led the declines and lost 0.2%. In economic data out today, the Fed's preferred inflation metric held steady at 3.7% for July. That's a reminder of the nagging problem facing the central bank's chairman, Kevin Warsh, as he prepares for his speech on Friday at Jackson Hole. The State Department has paused processing of immigrant visas, the kind that lead to a green card, so officers can be trained on new guidance for vetting applicant's finances. It's not the first time the administration has frozen this process. A similar pause on immigrant visas from 75 countries lasted nearly eight months until a federal judge ruled this month that it discriminated by nationality. WSJ Immigration Reporter Michelle Hackman says that the Trump administration has been trying to limit legal immigration of all kinds. The administration has been trying to find ways to curtail immigration by people of limited financial needs. They are requiring a lot more information of people who want to immigrate to the United States like bank records, even things like health records. They've attached these to various visas that are really meant to discourage people from using those visas. For example, a student visa allows you to work in the United States for up to three years after graduation, and the administration doesn't like that. So what they're considering doing is attaching a $100,000 fee to employers who want to hire international students, and economists are projecting that that will drive most international students to basically leave right after they graduate, or just not come at all. And in Asia, flash floods tore through towns along a popular pilgrimage route on the border of China and Nepal today, killing at least 100 people. Hundreds more are missing, including more than 130 travelers from India and almost 50 people from the US. Rescue operations are still in early stages and officials expect the death toll to rise. There's also been damage to infrastructure like bridges, roads, and hydropower plants and buildings have been left buried and silted. It's the second time in just over a year that flash floods have devastated the area. Scientists around the world are trying to solve the mystery of what caused such a destructive flood today, since there hasn't been a lot of rain. For now, the leading theory is that a cascade of ice and rock from a glacier broke off into rivers below. And that's what's news for this Wednesday afternoon. Today's show was produced by Danny Lewis with supervising producer Tali Arbel. I'm Sabrina Sardiki for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening. [MUSIC PLAYING]