Shadowing Practice: How Meta Will Enforce New Age And Time Limits On Instagram And Facebook - Learn English Speaking with Video
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102 sentences
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Meta reached a landmark settlement in its child safety trial with 48 states, plus the District of Columbia and multiple territories.
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The company is agreeing to pay up to $17 billion over 10 years over its alleged harm to teens, the United States.
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$17 billion is historically high.
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It's the highest amount of money ever paid in a case like this.
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And $17 billion can do a lot of good to prevent and remediate mental health harms for kids.
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I want to emphasize the importance of this case is not the money per se, it's the change in behavior.
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Could we have gotten more money had we pursued to a final verdict at trial?
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Maybe.
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But compare what the limits were on Meta's conduct from the Nexo case, really a lot less than what we got.
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As part of the settlement, Meta must implement safeguards for teens, including a daily time limit.
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It must block its apps at night and pause notifications during school hours.
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The product changes that they have agreed to make as part of the settlement are quite meaningful.
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I mean, they're attacking and mitigating so many of the features
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and product design elements that have proven to be harmful to young people.
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We're digging into how the settlement marks the most significant change to meta-social media platforms ever
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and how it'll pull off these new limits for teens.
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Meta has agreed to a number of changes for its users age 13 to 17, including a two-hour default time limit, blocking its apps between midnight and 6 a.m.,
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muting notifications during school hours, hiding likes, disabling cosmetic filters, and ensuring it's doing a better job of figuring out
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which users are teens and who is under 13 and shouldn't be using its apps.
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The company says it will take about six months for it to roll out many of the new default protections
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that it's agreed to.
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It already has some of the features, like the ability to mute likes and notifications, to give team users the ability to turn off autoplay in videos,
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and to give them control over the algorithms determining their feed, Meta needs to build new tools from scratch.
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I'm particularly interested in the provisions
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that give parents the opportunity to opt out of an algorithmic
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feed where kids could see a chronological feed of content that they have asked for.
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Their friends, the sports teams they follow, celebrities they're interested in.
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Because what this does is, for those of us who were using Instagram a decade ago, eventually you get to a point and it says you're all caught up.
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And that's a natural signal to, I don't know, put down your phone, pick up a book, go outside.
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The most complex challenge from a technical standpoint will be implementing what Meta calls age assurances,
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stricter age verification requirements to keep children under the age of 13 off its platforms
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and accurately identifying the 13 to 17 year olds who have lied about their age, which Meta says will take a year to roll out.
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Another major condition of the settlement is an independent auditor ensuring compliance.
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There will be an independent consultant for the data protection order who is responsible to effectively look at the raw data,
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make sure that Meta is complying with their end of the deal
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and issue an annual report based on that and report back to attorneys general if their compliance measures are inadequate.
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Part of Meta's settlement is tied to TikTok and YouTube getting on board with restrictions for teens.
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$5.3 billion of Meta's $17 billion settlement is only if TikTok
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and YouTube agree to set default one-hour time limits a day on their apps for team users
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and each pay the state's 5.3 billion dollars.
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We're suing TikTok now so we are looking to ensure
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that they adopt the similar practices and commitments that Meta did and we are very interested in Snap and YouTube as well.
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We want an industry-wide solution.
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We want everyone in the industry to be taking steps like Meta is required to now.
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And Meta is trying to be a leader in the space.
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Before the landmark settlement, Meta defended its products as safe.
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Now, as it implements these changes, it's calling on rivals to voluntarily comply with the new rules that it accepted as part of the settlement with state AGs.
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TikTok and YouTube did not respond to CNBC's request for comment.
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They're saying protecting kids is only going to be possible if everyone joins us.
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And I think it's It's part of Meta's playbook to effectively deny wrongdoing.
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And then when they admit to it, usually under a huge amount of pressure, trying to kind of come out like a leader in the space.
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The most complex part of Meta's compliance with the settlement is figuring out who to apply these teen restrictions to two.
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Meta has to build an entirely new prediction model to identify who's under 13
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and which users are 13 to 17 without using facial recognition.
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The company tells us it'll build an algorithm that pulls in data like who users are connected to, who they follow, and who their followers are,
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as well as details like happy birthday comments.
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There have been over 10 years
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that they have had no problem identifying who are likely kids in the context of providing value to advertisers.
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There are so many signals that go into age estimation,
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and those are the signals that determine which advertising groups people are put in for advertising targeting.
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In a statement to CNBC about detecting underage users, Metta said, quote, Developing and refining high-accuracy AI technology,
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especially systems designed to protect young people, requires rigorous testing and care.
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Building sophisticated age prediction models is inherently complex,
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and suggesting it can be done quickly ignores the technical precision needed to ensure these systems are safe and reliable.
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The challenge of age verification has prompted a debate between social media platforms, including Meta, and Apple and Google's app stores.
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has said the owners should be on the app stores to
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verify the age of users before they are able to download an app.
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Meta has already been working on age-gating technology in countries such as Australia, which banned social media for kids under 16 last year.
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Teens are still finding workarounds to access the apps, such as by using VPNs.
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I really believe that Australia's minimum age requirement, kind of mandatory delay, was a really important first step in keeping kids safe from platforms like META.
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But as we've seen in Australia, the implementation is really tricky and important.
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Not everyone is celebrating the settlement as a win for the states and for teens.
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The coalition of state AGs were originally looking for as much as $200 billion.
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So this settlement of $17 billion is just a fraction of that.
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That's one reason Florida did not join the 48 states and is moving forward with its suit against Meta.
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This was not a good deal for the states and that's why Florida wasn't a part of it.
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We are not going to sell out when it comes to child safety.
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Plus, Florida's AG cites its concerns with the limited duration of the settlement.
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Time limit
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and night mode features will start with a five-year commitment with other terms required to remain in place for 10 years.
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The changes can't just be for five years.
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Child protection is not a temporary short-term goal.
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They violated Florida law and our law is not temporary.
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It's permanent.
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These changes need to be permanent.
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As for the question of whether this deal will impact Meta's bottom line, the company has told us that teens generate less than 1% of its revenue.
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But some question whether teens will leave for platforms without restrictions
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or whether these changes will impact Meta's ability to appeal to
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teens before they become adults who are far more valuable in terms of ad revenue.
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Kids are extremely valuable to Meta.
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We've seen evidence released in in some of the other litigation with internal research
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that said for instance quote the young ones are are the best ones.
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And so it's actually pretty devastating to Meta's current strategy to limit the kind of hooks
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that they can put into young people.
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And while Meta has settled this case, it's far from the end of the road for the company and the other social media companies facing lawsuits.
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There are still other cases, you know, the school's case and the individual lawsuits that remain up in the air.
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It's uncertain how those are going to be resolved, but I think it's probable that those will get resolved at a much lower amount than the state AG's case.
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Tick-tock, Snap, and Google who has YouTube.
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There has to be an industry-wide solution.
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There are cases in some of those companies coming up soon.
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There is a wide agreement among the AGs and this was a bipartisan effort of essentially every AG in the United States.
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So yes, these other companies also need to change how they operate.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 102 sentences and 1509 words to shadow. The speech runs for 9:00. The speaker talks at a natural 168 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 83% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| meta adjective | /ˈmɛtə/ | Self-referential; structured analogously (structured by relationships), but at a higher level. |
| default noun | /dɪˈfɔlt/ | The condition of failing to meet an obligation. |
| implement verb | /ˈɪmpləmənt/ | To bring about; to put into practice; to carry out. |
| compliance noun | /kəmˈplaɪ.əns/ | An act of complying. |
| notification noun | /ˌnoʊtɪfɪˈkeɪʃn̩/ | The act of notifying. |
| restriction noun | /ɹɪˈstɹɪkʃən/ | The act of restricting, or the state of being restricted. |
| temporary adjective | /ˈtɛmp(əˌɹ)ɛɹi/ | Not permanent; existing only for a period or periods of time. |
| harm noun | /hɑːm/ | Physical injury; hurt; damage. |
| commitment noun | /kəˈmɪtmənt/ | The act of sending a legislative bill to committee for review. |
| requirement noun | /ɹɪˈkwaɪɹmənt/ | A necessity or prerequisite; something required or obligatory. Its adpositions are generally of in relation to who or what has given it, on in relation to whom… |
| resolve verb | /ɹɪˈzɑlv/ | To find a solution to (a problem). |
| lawsuit noun | /ˈlɔˌs(j)ut/ | In civil law, a case where two or more people disagree and one or more of the parties take the case to a court for resolution. |
| comply verb | /kəmˈplaɪ/ | To yield assent; to accord; to acquiesce, agree, consent; to adapt oneself, to conform. |
| algorithm noun | /ˈælɡəɹɪðm̩/ | A collection of ordered steps that solve a mathematical problem. A precise step-by-step plan for a computational procedure that possibly begins with an input… |
| prediction noun | /pɹɪˈdɪkʃən/ | A statement of what will happen in the future. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. | |
| roll out verb | To deploy or release (a new film or software, etc.); to launch (a product or service), especially in a gradual fashion across multiple regions. | |
| caught up verb | Involuntarily involved in a situation. | |
| come out verb | /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ | To be discovered; to be revealed. |
| come up verb | To emerge or become known, especially unexpectedly. | |
| pick up verb | To lift; to grasp and raise. | |
| pull off verb | To remove by pulling. | |
| put down verb | To insult, belittle, or demean. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have gotten · have agreed · have proven |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is required · are connected · are put |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 15 contractions and reduced forms, such as they're, it'll, we're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: algorithm /ˈælɡəɹɪðm̩/, algorithmic /ˌælɡəˈɹɪðmɪk/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: notification /ˌnoʊtɪfɪˈkeɪʃn̩/, restriction /ɹɪˈstɹɪkʃən/, prediction /pɹɪˈdɪkʃən/, verification /ˌvɛ.ɹə.fɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/, recognition /ˌɹɛkəɡˈnɪʃ(ə)n/
- Long words — get the stress right: notification /ˌnoʊtɪfɪˈkeɪʃn̩/, temporary /ˈtɛmp(əˌɹ)ɛɹi/, verification /ˌvɛ.ɹə.fɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/, recognition /ˌɹɛkəɡˈnɪʃ(ə)n/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like meta, default, implement.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.