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Last updated Nov 29, 2025
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Sacks @ 01:00:27Right
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Following the Haugen whistleblower episode (as of October 2021), U.S. and/or other government agencies will initiate formal actions against Facebook that will result in financial settlements, with Facebook paying fines in order to resolve these actions.
This whole thing is just getting started. There are going to be they're going to be government actions, and there will be settlements from those government actions. And the and Facebook, as you well know, will pay any kind of fine to put this behind them.View on YouTube
Explanation

Sacks predicted that after the Frances Haugen whistleblower episode in October 2021, government authorities would bring formal actions against Facebook/Meta and that these would lead to settlements in which Facebook paid fines.

Evidence since then supports this:

  • Shortly after Haugen’s disclosures, Facebook told investors it was already facing “government investigations” related to a former employee’s allegations and release of internal company documents about its algorithms, advertising, and content enforcement, confirming the regulatory machinery had been set in motion. (ktvz.com)

  • In June 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit and simultaneously entered into a court‑approved settlement with Meta over discriminatory housing ads, under the Fair Housing Act. As part of the final judgment in United States v. Meta Platforms, Meta agreed to change its ad‑delivery algorithms and pay a civil penalty of $115,054, the statutory maximum—a clear example of a government enforcement action ending in a settlement and fine. (justice.gov)

  • In 2024, Texas sued Meta over unlawful capture and use of Texans’ biometric data (facial recognition on Facebook photos) and, in July 2024, reached a $1.4 billion settlement, the largest privacy settlement ever obtained by a single U.S. state. This is a classic government action (state AG enforcement) resolved by a monetary settlement paid by Meta. (texasattorneygeneral.gov)

  • European regulators have likewise brought multiple post‑2021 actions resulting in large fines against Meta: in May 2023 the Irish Data Protection Commission, following a binding European Data Protection Board decision, imposed a €1.2 billion GDPR fine on Meta Ireland for unlawful EU‑US data transfers; in December 2024 the same regulator imposed another €251 million fine over the 2018 Facebook data breach. These are formal regulatory actions culminating in financial penalties. (edpb.europa.eu)

  • In April 2025, the European Commission fined Meta €200 million under the Digital Markets Act for its “consent or pay” ad‑funding model—again a government enforcement action with a substantial fine. (pcgamer.com)

Meta’s own summarized history of legal actions now lists multiple post‑2021 government cases and resulting fines or settlements, including the DOJ housing‑ads settlement, major GDPR fines, and the Texas biometric settlement. (en.wikipedia.org)

These developments match Sacks’ forecast in all material respects: there were indeed new and escalated government actions after the Haugen episode, several of which ended in formal settlements or regulatory decisions forcing Meta/Facebook to pay monetary penalties to resolve them. Accordingly, the prediction is best classified as right.