Trump’s Tech Buds Just Had Worst Day in Years

0:00Michael Popok:Donald Trump doesn't care if 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 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.

0:47Michael Popok:The Democratic Attorneys General leapt into action. They filed a case, the first one brought by four states, California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey, filed in a Oakland, California federal court. They were already in trial. The YouTube head was testifying. And Metta 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 and the District of Columbia over the next 10 years. I mean, it's not the$1.4 trillion that the states were seeking.

1:28Michael Popok: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.

2:15Michael Popok:Can't rely on the Department of Justice, Donald Trump, Harmeet Dillon, and the Civil Rights Division. They don't care about your children. They're bought and paid for by big tech. Not so the Democratic Attorneys General. And you know who else benefited from this announced proposed settlement? Red states. You know, the Democratic Attorney Generals, they're not going to be like, well, no, you never help us. You never file the lawsuit and you get the benefits of our work. The Democratic Party is not like MAGA, where Donald Trump wants to cut off funding and programs and aid to people who voted against him or people in blue states that he thinks voted against them, even if it means disaster relief or food relief being cut off.

3:01Michael Popok:The 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 Weiser in 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 weekend. Things were obviously going awry in that courtroom. Either they didn't like the jury, and they have jury consultants to tell them that.

3:37Michael Popok:They didn't like the way the jury was responding to the witnesses. They didn't want to put Mark Zuckerberg up. He was due up for 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 Popok. You're on Legal AF and Midas Touch 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 earned in 2025, this is about 10 % of their revenue, of their gross revenue for a year. But it's material.

4:20Michael Popok: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.

5:02Michael Popok: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.

5:49Michael Popok: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.

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7:09Michael Popok: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 130 pages is really detailed. 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. And as I said, daily limits on it.

8:00Michael Popok:And then how data is collected and used, surreptitious collection of data while your child is watching social media, social media is watching them. And this helps address that as well. Is it perfect? No. But I know what the thinking was. I mean, I'm going to ask A.G. Bonta 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.

8:47Michael Popok:It 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 asked for$1.4 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.

9:26Michael Popok:didn't you have the certainty of having negotiated the agreement? You know, 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 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.

10:09Michael Popok:Until my next report, this is Michael Popak. Can't get your fill of Legal AF? Me neither. That's why we formed the Legal AF 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 and the oral argument there, including a daily roundup that I do called, wait for it, Morning AF. What else? All the other contributors from Legal AF are there as well. We got some new reporting. We got interviews. We got ad-free versions of the podcast and hot takes where Legal AF on Substack. Come over now to free subscribe.