Author Offers Solutions as Meta Agrees to Historic Child-Safety Settlement of Up to $18 Billion

Gini Graham Scott's "The Facebook Problem...And How to Fix It" returns as 29 states force changes to how Meta treats young users

SAN RAMON, CA, UNITED STATES, September 9, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Meta has agreed to pay up to about $18 billion to settle claims that it knowingly designed Facebook and Instagram to addict children and teens, with just over $17 billion resolving a lawsuit brought jointly by 29 states. As part of the deal, the company will make major changes to how minors use its platforms, including daily time limits, automatic pauses, nighttime blocks from midnight to 6 a.m., stronger age checks, and new tools for parents, changes most states are requiring to remain in place for at least a decade.

The settlement is the largest moment yet in a wave of litigation against the company. Earlier this year a New Mexico jury found Meta violated the state's consumer protection law and ordered it to pay $375 million in damages, and a judge later directed Meta to contribute a further $567 million to a fund to address the harms. Meta still faces hundreds of additional lawsuits brought by states, families, and school districts.

Legal observers have drawn the obvious parallel to tobacco. In 1998, the major cigarette manufacturers agreed to pay 46 states more than $200 billion over 25 years to settle claims over the health costs of smoking. It was the largest civil settlement in American history, and the companies kept selling cigarettes. What changed the industry was not the check. It was the regulation that followed: advertising restrictions, health warnings, limits on marketing to minors, and eventually federal oversight of the product itself. For Scott, that is the lesson worth learning twice.

For author Gini Graham Scott, PhD, it is confirmation of a problem she has been documenting all along. Her book, "The Facebook Problem...And How to Fix It," published by American Leadership Books, examines how the platform is built to keep users hooked, the toll that takes on young people in particular, and the harder-to-see costs from data collection to users locked out of their accounts with no recourse. But as the title promises, the book does not stop at the problem. It lays out concrete steps for parents, everyday users, and lawmakers, from practical ways to take back control of your own use to the regulatory changes that would force real accountability.

Scott is well placed to make that case. A sociologist with a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of some 250 books, 200 through her own company and more than 50 with major publishers, she has spent a career studying why people do what they do, expertise she turns here on one of the most powerful behavioral machines ever built.

At the heart of the book is a practical call to action. Scott is leading a letter-writing campaign urging citizens to contact their Senators and Representatives directly in support of regulating Facebook and Meta. The book shows readers how to write letters that work: keep them concise and focused, state the issue and the specific action requested, and reference concrete developments such as the recent settlement and court rulings, adding personal or community experiences that show why it matters. As she puts it, when lawmakers hear the same concerns from many different constituents, the case for reform becomes far harder to ignore.

Readers who want to add their voice can join the Campaign Against Facebook and Meta by contacting changemakerspub@att.net

"The Facebook Problem...And How to Fix It" is available now on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GVTHCX6C?ref=sp_email

Jana Collins
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