He beat Big Tobacco. Will the same playbook work against Meta and social

As a central figure who helped negotiate the blockbuster $246 billion tobacco master settlement in 1998, Mike Moore sees the writing on the wall for Meta and its social media rivals like TikTok and Google’s YouTube.

Moore was the Mississippi attorney general leading the charge against Big Tobacco. He’s long since retired from public office, but is using his experience to help inform state AGs in the crafting of a potential sweeping settlement with the social media industry, which has been similarly accused of knowingly fostering addiction and harming America’s youth.

Meta this week agreed to pay almost $17 billion in a landmark settlement with a coalition of state AGs that had sued the company for misrepresenting the extent of child mental health damage caused by Facebook and Instagram. It’s by far the biggest deal yet in the massive litigation wave facing social media companies, but experts say the matter is far from over as a bundle of cases remain open.

As co-leader of Attention Initiative, a newly created nonprofit, Moore told CNBC he sees the opportunity for a grand settlement that involves a wider swath of companies and impactful remedies, including a permanent national public education fund to “reduce the number of young people who fall prey to the addiction and the many harms it has caused.”

Meta agreed to changes including daily usage limits and “nighttime blocks” for teenagers who use the company’s apps, “enhanced age assurance measures” that would prevent children from using them and the creation of additional tools for parents and guardians. An independent auditor will monitor and report on whether Meta is complying with the settlement’s terms over a five-year period.

“The settlement with the states is a great first step in helping protect our children from the dangers on social media,” Moore said, in his first public comments on the matter. “The attorneys general have done a great job with their investigations and lawsuits in exposing the bad practices of Meta and the social media industry and now providing a template of corrective actions the industry must take.”

While Moore sees major parallels to the tobacco battle almost three decades ago, the universe of Big Tech and social media presents an array of challenges that may limit the viability of the old playbook. Unlike tobacco, a static product with no real defensible qualities outside of recreation, consumer technology is ever evolving, and the lines between harmfully addictive and beneficial to society can be extremely blurry.

“Cigarettes are cigarettes,” said Jonathan Caulkins, a professor of public policy at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College. By contrast, he said there are stark differences between apps like Facebook and…