Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump’s Tech Buds Just Had Worst Day in Years

Episode Date: August 27, 2026

Trump couldn't care less about social media preying on children through targeting algorithms and campaigns, as the Tech Bros thought they bought a president. But that hasn’t stopped the Democratic Attorneys General from bringing Meta/Facebook/Instagram to its knees during trial and forcing a $18 billion settlement that includes major changes to Meta’s business model and gets them out of the children-targeting market. Popok reports on the settlement announced during the trial that was not going well for Facebook, as Mark Zuckerberg was due up to testify. Ironwall: Go to https://ironwall.com/legalaf, fill in the quick form, and request your free Risk Assessment. Their team will show you just how exposed your executives are — and how to lock it down before a threat reaches their front door. Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af Sidebar with Katie Phang: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sidebar-with-katie-phang/id1886801652 The Parnas Perspective: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-parnas-perspective/id1869165949 The Intersection with Michael Popok: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-intersection-with-michael-popok/id1818863274 MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Ken Harbaugh Show: https://meidasnews.com/tag/the-ken-harbaugh-show The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Five Minute News: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/five-minute-news/id1471715443 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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and discover how to take your summer to the next level. OnStar. Better never stops. Donald Trump doesn't care of your children are preyed upon in social media, if they are the subject of abuse by way of social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, he could care less.

The tech bros were all lined up behind him during his inauguration. They thought they bought a presidency, and they might have, but they didn't buy the Democratic Attorneys General. In breaking news, we've got a new settlement that's been announced,

not just any settlement, a settlement to stop Facebook and YouTube. from violating child's safety laws and child safety policies, helping to prey on children through their algorithm, through their streams, through their notification system, all calibrated to hook children. The Democratic Attorney General leapt into action. They filed a case the first one of brought by four states,

California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey, filed in an Oakland, California federal court. They were already in trial. The YouTube head was testifying. And Meta saw the writing on the wall, as did Zuckerberg, who likely did not want to testify. They didn't like how the jury looked. They didn't like the way the jury was receiving them. And they finally, during the trial, folded.

Not only $18 billion paid out to 47 states in the District of Columbia over the next 10 years. I mean, it's not the $1.4 trillion that the states were seeking. but, you know, that 18 billion is pretty darn good, but it's the changes to their business model that was important to the attorneys general. We have 130-page proposed settlement agreement, which I happen to have right here that just got posted up today

with the federal judge that's handling the case. And, you know, she'll eventually have to decide whether to sign off on it, but it's going to have daily limits in terms of hours for teen users, 13 to 17. It's going to change the algorithm. It's going to change how scrolling is done.

And whether that's going to be on an endless infinity loop or not, it's going to change how they target children to stop targeting them. Can't rely on the Department of Justice. Donald Trump, Harvey Dillon, and the Civil Rights Division, they don't care about your children. They're bought and paid for it by big tech. Not so. The Democratic Attorney's General.

And you know who else benefited from this announced proposed settlement? Red states? You know, Democratic Attorney Generals, they're not going to be like, well, no, you know, you never help us. You never filed the lawsuits and you get the benefits of our work. You know, the Democratic Party's not like MAGA, where Donald Trump wants to cut off funding and programs and aid to people who voted against them or people in blue states that he thinks voted against them, even if it means disaster relief or food relief being cut off. Democrats are like, listen, if some of these states are red states,

and they have children too, and we're going to protect them. In the next couple of days, I'm going to have a couple of people on, Phil Wiser and Colorado, Attorney General, and Rob Bonta, AG for California, who led the charge. And hats off to them. I've settled cases on the courthouse steps. the day before trial, day of trial, while trial had started, as soon as the jury was picked.

This was a week in. Things were obviously going awry in that courtroom. Either they didn't like the jury, and they have jury consultants to tell them that. They didn't like the way the jury was responding to the witnesses. They didn't want to put Mark Zuckerberg up, and he was due up the next week or two. It's not because they suddenly grew a conscience.

Let's just put it this way. Now, put this in perspective. By the way, I'm Michael Popock. You're on Legal A-F and Midas. network. Take a minute, hit the free subscribe button in both places and help us grow our pro-democracy channel. Now, put this in perspective, the $200 billion of revenue that META owned in 20, earned in 2025, this is about 10% of their revenue, of their gross revenue for a year. But it's material. They had to disclose it. It's not. And they keep losing. If they didn't settle,

with these states, they keep losing individual lawsuits. They've already gotten hit with over a billion dollars worth of judgments in two other cases. This is on behalf of the states and what the states are. You have an individual claim? It's not a class action. You have an individual claim? Go ahead.

Your child was hooked and something bad happened. Feel free to file. This is like the tobacco cases of 20 and 30 years ago, where the tobacco industry, usually some by attorneys general, a lot by private plaintiffs sued tobacco and almost sued them out of business and made them make major fundamental business changes. Stop advertising to children. Stop calibrating your nicotine to addict them. And it's that model that was used primarily in the child predator world, except the attorneys general using consumer protection, child protection laws that are unique to

each state. I would normally be announcing that the federal Department of Justice also joined in, but no, they resolved their case a long time ago with little or no money and no changes to the business model. But fortunately, the states have their own independent jurisdiction, concurrent jurisdiction in this area. And even though Trump, I'm sure, is sweating it out because he doesn't want his tech bros to have to spend any money or make any changes under the First Amendment. For Donald Trump, child predator behavior and attacking children and calibrating your algorithm to prey on them, that's just First Amendment speech. You could just hear Donald Trump saying that. Violent threats against executives are growing at an alarming rate when a company experiences backlash

executives are the first people blamed, when their address and other personal details are sitting online, this backlash can lead right to their front door. The team at Ironwall knows this better than anyone. They've protected some of the most targeted executives and individuals on the planet for almost two decades. As a white glove enterprise security service, they protect your people with continuous personal data removal, proactive prevention tools, and human-led emergency support. So when someone goes looking for your executives, Ironwall ensures they hit a dead end. So here's what to do. go to ironwall.com slash legal a.F, fill in the quick form, and request your free risk assessment. Their team will show you just how exposed your executives are and how to lock it down before a threat reaches their front door.

That's ironwall.com slash legal AF. Learn how to stop online threats before they become real-world attacks. The links are in the show notes. Thankfully, the attorneys general don't feel that way. So this is the, I'm going to put the settlement agreement in legal AF substack for you. Now this settlement amount could go up if the states also end up settling with YouTube and TikTok, then Facebook's got to pay more. Got to pay more. And this is, this 130 pages is really detailed, you know, turning off the lights on social media with night hours, making sure that sensitive.

content doesn't go their way, having age restrictions on content, making sure that there are exit ramps off of social media that children and their parents can use. As I said, daily limits on it. And then how data is collected and used. Seraptitious collection of data while your child is watching social media. Social media is watching them. And this helps address that as well. perfect? No, but I know what the thinking was. I mean, I'm going to ask AG Banta and A.G.

Weiser. I know what the thinking was, which was a jury making a decision and finding these bad things happen can really only award monetary damage. I mean, the judge, Judge Fernandez, could also issue her own injunctive relief, equitable relief that's held by the judge to fix the business model, but that we're talking about a long period of time. Could be a couple of years. First, you've got to get the jury verdict. That's a dollar amount. Maybe it's more than 18 billion because they ask for one point, one point four trillion. Maybe it's less. Then there's the inevitable appeal. Then two years of appeals before maybe the money is collected while you argue to a federal judge about their business model. Instead of doing all of that as a 2029 event, right now, they're

getting the deal, $18 billion paid out over 10 years with an opportunity to trigger higher amounts and make changes in the business model now, protect children now. That's three or four years of children that are being protected. You have the certainty of having negotiated the agreement. I'm sure, you know, this 130 pages just didn't get, you know, out of thin air. They've been working on this. I'm sure this is mainly drafted by the states about what they would require and then meta trying to negotiate around certain things. So I'm so glad that this happened. We're covering it here on Legal AF and on the Midas Touch Network. Look for my interviews, programming note, Nick of Phil Weiser of Colorado, an antitrust expert, also running for the governorship

of Colorado and Attorney General Rob Bonta. In the next 24 hours, you're going to see both of them on with me talking about the results of this case and what happens next. Until my next report, this is Michael Popock. Can't get your fill of legal A.F. Me neither. That's why we formed the legal A.F. Substack. Every time we mention something in a hot take, whether it's a court filing or a oral argument, come over to the substack. You'll find the court filing in the oral argument there, including a daily roundup that I do call, wait for it, morning A.F. What else? All the other contributors from legal A.F are there as well. We got some new reporting. We got interviews. We got ad-free versions of the podcast and hot takes.

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