Attorney General Mike Moore of Jackson, Mississippi, gives opening remarks at the tobacco hearing, and sitting next to him is D. Scott Wise, a partner at Davis, Polk & Wardwell in New York.
Douglas Graham | Cq-roll Call Inc. | Getty Images
As a key figure in helping negotiate the blockbuster $246 billion Tobacco Master settlement in 1998, Mike Moore sees the writing on the wall. meta Social media competitors like TikTok and TikTok Google YouTube.
As Mississippi’s attorney general, Moore led the charge against Big Tobacco. Although he has long since retired from public service, he is using his experience to inform state legislatures in order to craft a possible full settlement with the social media industry, which has also been accused of intentionally promoting addiction and harming America’s youth.
This week, Meta Inc. agreed to pay nearly $17 billion in a landmark settlement with a coalition of state agencies that had sued Facebook and Instagram for misrepresenting the extent of children’s mental health harm. It’s the biggest deal yet in a wave of massive litigation facing social media companies, but experts say the problem is far from over, with a large amount of unresolved litigation.
As co-chair of the newly formed nonprofit Attention Initiative, Moore told CNBC that he believes there is an opportunity for a larger settlement that includes broader corporate and impactful relief, including a permanent National Endowment for Public Education to “reduce the number of young people who fall prey to addiction and the many harms it causes.”
Meta agreed to changes including daily usage limits and “night blocks” for young people using its app, “enhanced age protection measures” to prevent children from using the app, and the creation of additional tools for parents and guardians. An independent auditor will monitor and report on Meta’s compliance with the terms of the settlement over a five-year period.
“This settlement with the states is a great first step toward protecting children from the dangers of social media,” Moore said in his first public comments on the issue. “The Attorney General has done an excellent job in the investigation and litigation of exposing the bad practices of the meth and social media industries and providing a template for corrective actions the industry can take.”
Moore points to strong similarities with the tobacco wars of nearly 30 years ago, but the world of Big Tech and social media presents a series of challenges that could limit the viability of old strategies. Unlike cigarettes, which are static products with no real defensible properties outside of recreation, consumer technologies are constantly evolving, and the line between harmful addiction and good for society can become very blurry.
“A cigarette is a cigarette,” says Jonathan Caulkins, a public policy professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College. In contrast, he said there are clear differences between apps like Facebook and TikTok, and that “in the world of AI and social media, it’s simply impossible to know what these technologies will do, for better or worse, in five, 10, 15 years.”
Caulkins said he is not convinced that a “single settlement” can resolve all health-related concerns, given the rapid advances in technology.
Still, Moore said it’s important to develop a settlement proposal to ensure litigators pursue the most important modifications. In his view, this includes public education funds, but dozens of states, cities, counties and school districts are each pursuing different remedies.
He said the goal of the Attention Initiative is to “make sure everyone can hear loud and clear” that “we need corrective public education programs, prevention programs, whatever you want to call them.”
“It’s best to do it piecemeal, nationally, rather than city by city, county by county, state by state, and that just wastes a lot of money,” he said.
Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram at Meta Platforms Inc., arrives at the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse on Tuesday, August 25, 2026 in Oakland, California, USA.
Jason Henry | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The Meta settlement comes just over a week after a federal trial in Oakland, Calif., co-chaired by California AG Rob Bonta for the plaintiffs. The lawsuit, filed in 2023, accuses Mehta of violating federal and state laws, including the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and various consumer protection laws.
After announcing the agreement, Bonta called it “conceptually a floor, not a ceiling,” and said, “This signals to the rest of the industry that we are not done yet, and we look forward to similar results.”
Mehta would not comment on whether a larger settlement is in the works to clear any remaining legal hurdles. The company said in a statement after the announcement that some of the payments are contingent on YouTube and TikTok implementing similar changes to their services.
Google and TikTok did not respond to requests for comment. snapis facing numerous lawsuits but declined to comment.
Assuming that “nothing changes”
The Attention Initiative was founded by 22-year-old Josh Jacobs. He modeled the Colorado nonprofit in part on the Truth Initiative, a public health group founded as part of the tobacco settlement and chaired by Moore.
Jacobs previously co-founded an online advertising and e-commerce startup with friends from college, but became disillusioned with what he characterized as the social media industry’s “perverse incentives to maximize engagement above all else.”
He began studying the similarities between social media and cigarettes, an effort that led to a snub for Mr. Moore. He felt he needed to take action while the buzz was still high.
“Most people my age don’t hear about this trial on the news,” Jacobs said. “They’re seeing it on social media, and the comments on that post are almost completely cynical. There’s an assumption that nothing will change.”
Josh Jacobs, Founder of the Attention Initiative.
Provided by: Joshua Jacobs
However, many engineers are concerned that there is too much change.
The industry has long had concerns about regulations and laws that infringe on free speech, and experts say there are nuances to social media that make it difficult to regulate. There are notorious loopholes in age verification and parental controls. Australian teens are reportedly now using social media apps more, despite a ban late last year, in part because they can use virtual private networks (VPNs) to circumvent local laws.
Additionally, there is the emergence of artificial intelligence chatbots and companions, which are not generally considered part of the social media industry, although they raise various concerns regarding their use by minors.
Former Facebook product leader Alison Ball previously invested in Jacobs’ startup. Mr. Ball, now a venture capitalist, said he praised Mr. Jacobs and Mr. Moore’s efforts, but said he wished they would “focus intently on what could actually help” rather than advocating for regulations that he believes could have unintended consequences.
“In today’s society, doing the right thing is the hardest thing to do,” Ball said. “It is very difficult for the government to judge correctly where to restrict freedoms and who to hold accountable.”
She agreed that while education is important, “it alone doesn’t solve the whole problem.”
From cigarettes to social media
Moore is not the only person deeply involved in the tobacco scandal to see similarities with social media.
Attorneys Joe Rice and Steve Berman were two of the key architects of the tobacco settlement and, like Moore, were also heavily involved in opioid-related litigation. Berman speculates that Meta will next settle school district lawsuits in which about 1,200 school districts across the country accuse Facebook’s parent company and other social media companies of intentionally promoting addictive features.
“They’re going to have to address this issue or they’re going to be litigated forever,” Berman said.
Rice, whose law firm Motley Rice is involved in several social media cases, said that for a general settlement to be reached, technology companies will need to come together in a way they haven’t before, given how much they compete with each other.
“At some point, it’s possible that a couple of the biggest platforms will say, ‘Look, we should all agree to this,'” he said. “They’re out of step right now.”
Moore said he has initiated potential master settlement language with the AG, but declined to comment further. He is calling on his colleagues at the Truth Initiative to work with Jacobs and representatives from the AG’s office.
The trial will remain on the calendar until a broader resolution is reached.
That includes a case involving Snap Inc. in New Mexico, where Gov. Raul Torrez, director of the Truth Initiative, is leading child sexual exploitation litigation. It’s similar to the case Meta lost in New Mexico earlier this year. A trial there is scheduled for about a year from now.
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