South Dakota attorney general urges beefed-up consumer protection after $53 million Meta settlement

State lawmakers should decide how to spend the largest consumer protection settlement with a single company in South Dakota history, Attorney General Marty Jackley said.

But he’d like to see them put at least some of the money toward consumer protection.

Jackley’s office has two lawyers and six investigators in its consumer protection division, handling upwards of 82,000 consumer complaints a year.

That team was part of the work that led to Wednesday’s $17.1 billion settlement offer from Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, in a multi-state lawsuit to which South Dakota was a party. The 29 states alleged that the social media platforms are addictive and harm children.

Meta to pay 47 states up to $17.1B in landmark child safety settlement

South Dakota is in line for $52.6 million of that money from Meta, which could rise to $73.4 million if the other defendants in the case — the owners of YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat — also offer separate monetary settlements.

South Dakota’s share of the money is 11% higher than it would’ve been had the state not signed on as one of the 29 plaintiffs in the initial lawsuit in 2023, Jackley said during a Wednesday press conference in Pierre. South Dakota’s $52.6 million share includes $4.5 million to resolve the state’s claims that Meta had shared nonpublic information about its users during the 2016 election cycle with a company called Cambridge Analytica.

“As part of the conversation,” on how to spend the money, Jackley said, he thinks “adding a lawyer or two to work on these significant cases” in consumer protection would be wise.

“When you’re bringing in upwards of $73.6 million, I think it justifies building up the team,” said Jackley, who asked for and received funding from lawmakers last year for an outreach worker in consumer protection.

The money would be deposited initially into the consumer protection fund, and continue to flow to the state over the course of 10 years. Jackley’s spokesman, Tony Mangan, told South Dakota Searchlight that the Attorney General’s Office can’t spend money from the consumer fund without legislative approval.

Under the terms of the settlement, at least 50% of the money needs to be used to address “the concerns raised” by the lawsuit, Jackley said. Beyond that, Jackley said, he hopes lawmakers consider “guardrails” on how to invest the remaining dollars that make sure the money benefits children.

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The dollar amount from Facebook is “the record” for the state’s largest settlement with a single company, Jackley said. Collections from tobacco and opioid settlements have been larger overall, but the money in those instances came from multiple companies. 

Because of ongoing negotiations, Jackley said he “has to be careful” when discussing how much money the owners of YouTube, TikTok or Snapchat might offer to resolve claims of harm to children. He said, however, that he’d expect it to “be somewhat consistent” with the Facebook figure.

Wednesday’s settlement addresses the lawsuit against Meta from the state of South Dakota and other states, the trial for which began Aug. 12. Several other lawsuits of a similar nature against the company and other social media businesses are ongoing in other state and federal courts.

Among them are cases filed separately by the Standing Rock, Cheyenne River, Oglala and Sisseton-Wahpeton tribes, each of which have lands entirely or partially located within the borders of South Dakota.

Tim Purdon, of the law firm Robins Kaplan, represents those four tribes, as well as others, in ongoing cases against Meta, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube. The Wednesday settlement, Purdon told South Dakota Searchlight, does not resolve those tribal cases.