After skipping Meta's settlement, Florida asks a judge to pull under-14 users off Facebook and Instagram

Florida's case against the deal rests on cash, and its own figures can be checked ^[9]. According to Cryptopolitan's account, Florida's motion says the annual payment equals about two days of Meta's revenue, for a company it values at $1.86 trillion ^[9]. Florida's Voice, cited by the same outlet, put the deal at $11.66 billion over a decade across 51 states and territories ^[8]. That is about $1.17 billion a year ^[19]. If a year's payment on that figure is two days of revenue, Meta takes in about $583 million a day, or roughly $213 billion a year ^[20]. CNA describes the deal as up to $18 billion with 48 other states and Washington DC, and puts it at about one month of revenue ^[7][10]. One month at $18 billion implies $216 billion a year ^[21]. So the two reports roughly agree on Meta's revenue and disagree on the deal; the "up to" in the larger figure suggests a ceiling, and neither report explains the gap ^[22].

At either size the payment is under 1% of the market value Florida cited: 0.63% at $11.66 billion, 0.97% at $18 billion ^[23]. Florida said in the filing that the settlement amounted to a "mere slap on the wrist, will be cynically viewed as the cost of doing business, and in any event will not prevent this kind of behavior going forward" ^[11]. Having made that case, Florida forgoes its share of the cash, whatever it would have been, and puts its legal effort into an order on how the apps work ^[6].

The proposed limits are tighter than the two-hour cap suggests ^[2]. On a school weekday, a default quiet mode blocks 9 p.m. to 8 a.m. and a second block covers 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. ^[4]. That leaves six hours, from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m., and the cap allows a third of them ^[24]. The 60-hour monthly limit is the daily cap multiplied by 30 ^[5][25]. Unless parents can raise the daily cap, the monthly limit binds only in a 31-day month, and then by two hours ^[25].

Meta denied wrongdoing in settling and has said it works hard to keep teens safe; a spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment ^[14]. Florida's suit, brought under its Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, accuses Meta of calling its apps safe for young users while research pointed to anxiety, depression and self-harm ^[16]. The filing cites internal chats in which one employee wrote "IG is a drug" and another described the company as "basically pushers" ^[17].

If a judge grants the motion largely as written, Meta would run stricter teen rules in Florida than in the states that settled ^[7][12]. If a judge narrows or denies it, Florida has neither the settlement cash nor the terms while the case runs ^[6]. A third outcome is a separate Florida settlement, with the motion as leverage ^[6].

I think Florida's holdout is a bet on product terms. By its own figures the money is two days of Meta revenue a year ^[9], and the terms it wants beyond the settlement are ones Meta did not give the other states ^[12]. That view is wrong if Florida ends up settling separately and the main gain over the multistate deal is a bigger check ^[7].