The amount, 1.4 billion dollars, may seem large. But it is insignificant: just 1/10 of the company’s profits in the second quarter of 2024… Consequently, Meta Platforms (reminder: the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads) was sincere when it declared 2.5 months ago that it was “happy to have resolved the issue with the state of Texas” (paying this 1.4 billion fine, through an extrajudicial settlement – and in installments of course).
What did the company do? It stole for nearly 8 years, from 2011 to 2019, via the “tag suggestions” feature, the biometric data of the face of over 20,000,000 Texas facebook users; biometric data that (according to the court decision / settlement) it forwarded to other entities… Unknown which ones, unknown at what prices…
The first issue is the “fine – gift”: it allows the Texas justice (in this case) to boast that it is on the side of the “victims”, while the company declares that it “hopes to deepen its investments in Texas, including possible data centers”…
The second issue is the extremely limited locality. Did the company only conduct the biometric appropriation using users’ photos and videos in Texas? Obviously not! But no other such lawsuit seems to be filed, either within the US or anywhere else…
The third and most important issue is the users of antisocial media themselves (in general). Are they careless or naive? They are probably children, even though they are formally considered adults. The generalized infantilization of populations is an eldorado, and not only for “communication” companies.
These populations, as groups and as individuals one by one, are already condemned to life imprisonment. And they don’t know it.