📱 Landmark win against Meta

Meta Settles With WA in Landmark Child Safety Case

Meta agreed to pay out $17.1 billion in a multistate and territory lawsuit for knowingly failing to protect children on Facebook and Instagram. Washington is set to receive a guaranteed $237 million, and up to nearly $339 million over the next 10 years. The additional funding is contingent on the states working with other social media companies to come to similar agreements. State officials say this is the largest state consumer protection settlement in history outside the Big Tobacco settlements of the 1990s. [Washington State Attorney General]

• “Meta intentionally exploited kids for profit, and then lied about it”: That’s according to Washington, D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb, who went on to say in a statement about the settlement that “[Meta claimed] products were safe when its own internal research confirmed the platforms were addictive and harmful.” The case was filed in 2023 by 47 states and Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands, saying Meta knew it was exposing children to serious mental harms, illegally collected pre-teens’ data without parental permission, and intentionally misled the public about the safety of its platforms. [Washington State Standard]
• New Meta safety features: In addition to the payment, Meta is required to implement new safety features designed to protect children on Instagram and Facebook. These include a default two-hour daily time limit, a default block on Meta apps between midnight and 6 a.m., notifications muted by default during school hours (8 a.m. and 3 p.m.), prompts after every 15 minutes of continuous screen time on Facebook and Instagram, and much more. [Washington State Standard]
• Settlement requirements mirror AG Brown’s law proposals: In 2025, Washington Attorney General Nick Brown worked with state legislators to write a bill to prohibit addictive social media feeds for kids, but it was ultimately unsuccessful in the last two legislative sessions. The settlement creates changes that are similar to that legislation. Meta also agreed to further restrict daily time limits for teens only if TikTok and YouTube agree to adopt comparable measures. [Washington State Attorney General]

✈️ FAA requires Boeing 787 inspections: Dozens of Boeing 787 planes must be inspected for cracks in the wings. The Federal Aviation Administration issued a directive Wednesday to ensure any cracks are caught and repaired. If left unaddressed, the cracks could grow and weaken the wing. The directive applies to 17 787s operating in the U.S. and 77 worldwide. There are more than 1,100 in Boeing’s global 787 fleet. [Seattle Times]

🪧 Teacher’s union authorizes strike: 91 percent of the roughly 6,000 members of the Seattle Education Association have voted to authorize a strike. This means if Seattle Public Schools doesn’t meet their requests to shift resources to the classroom, strengthen special education supports, offer “respectful pay,” and “eas[e] pressurization on educators” with smaller class sizes, there could be a strike, delaying the scheduled September 2 start to the school year. [CHS Blog]

🚫 Layoffs at the KCRHA, T-Mobile: A spokesperson for King County Regional Homelessness Authority confirmed to PubliCola that 10 people have been laid off. In addition, one person resigned voluntarily before the layoffs took place, and six vacant positions will remain vacant. “These aren’t directors or deputy directors—these are the folks at the bottom of the food chain,” a former staffer said. Bellevue-based T-Mobile also plans to lay off 77 Washington-based employees and close half a dozen stores. [PubliCola, Seattle Times]

🧑‍⚖️ Mayor Wilson recall effort withdrawn, for now: On Thursday, a King County Superior Court judge dismissed the petition to recall Mayor Wilson after Melinda Jacobson and Dale Osterud asked to withdraw the one they filed. However, Jacobson claims they've uncovered new information and have hired a lawyer to help refile. She expects the new effort to start up again within "days, not weeks." Guess we’ll see. [KUOW]