Between the ages of five and seventeen, millions of American kids got their first phone, their first account, and their first feed. Instagram and Facebook were not neutral tools waiting to be picked up. They were engineered products, tuned by some of the best-paid engineers on earth to hold a developing brain in place: infinite scroll with no natural end, autoplay, streaks, like counts, beauty filters, and notifications timed to pull a child back the moment they looked away.
Twenty-nine state attorneys general said Meta knew what those features did to children — and kept building them. In August 2026 Meta agreed to pay the states $16.7 billion and to add daily limits, nighttime blocks and real age checks for teens. That settlement went to the states. The families who lived it are filing their own claims now — and the first individual jury already found Meta liable.
Why the world has to shift
Technology that engages a human being should be built for that human, not for the metric. A five-year-old cannot consent to a persuasion engine. A fifteen-year-old cannot out-think one.
Accountability is what changes design. 3M's earplugs got fixed because veterans stood up. Cigarettes got warning labels because families did. Every family that files a Meta claim makes the next platform build differently — and makes this one prove it did.
We are veterans, first responders, and their families. We spent our lives protecting people. This is the same job, and the front line is a kitchen table in a military town.
That's the fight. Join us.
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