FARGO (KFGO) – In a multi-state settlement last week with tech-giant Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, over addictive features on social platforms, it was announced North Dakota will receive $17.6 million as part of the settlement. Minnesota received $214 million in the settlement, South Dakota will receive at least $53 million.
North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley says the state received a smaller amount in the settlement because they joined states like Michigan, Georgia and Montana from withdrawing their name from the lawsuit.
Wrigley says this was done because it did not exclude North Dakota from seeking relief in the lawsuit, but did stop what he called “burdensome” requests in the legal process.
“A discovery order that was issued by a magistrate judge in California that basically ordered the state AG to be responsible for these massive state government wide discovery requests.” Wrigley said. “We withdrew as a result of our state agencies, who believe that this burdensome request, they had no way to meet this in a meaningful way, cost effective way, time effective way, and we concluded that, you know, we’ve got a small but mighty consumer protection division.”
Wrigley says the differences in the distribution of funds was unexpected, but says the suit did achieve its goal of protecting young users from unfair practices and features.
“In the end, total combined, North Dakota’s getting about $17.6 million. We have no, there are no named victims, we don’t have people that we can look at, these aren’t damages that are being assessed because we have a category of people that have been injured by it, but, we get that, nevertheless for having been part of the lawsuit,” Wrigley said.
Comments