Meta built platforms that connected predators to children – and Florida is the only state still fighting for full accountability.
The other 47 states took the check, but Florida said the check was an insult.
And then Sean Hannity told Ron DeSantis on live television that parents should appreciate Mark Zuckerberg's generosity.
Hannity Missed the Biggest Child Safety Fight in the Country
Tuesday's Fox News segment started normally enough.
Hannity had DeSantis on to talk about artificial intelligence, and the Governor delivered a solid warning about Obama and Bernie Sanders trying to exploit AI fears for a left-wing power grab. Good stuff.
Then Hannity pivoted to Meta.
"To give Mark Zuckerberg credit, and maybe it was lawsuit-driven, but he made a settlement, made a decision, and put those controls in place, especially on kids," Hannity said on air. "I think parents appreciate that."
https://twitter.com/seanhannity/status/2100044693610336763?s=20
The problem: Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier had already told Meta exactly where to put that settlement.
When 47 states lined up in late August to take their share of Meta's $18 billion payout, Uthmeier walked the other direction.
He called the deal "peanuts" and "a slap on the wrist for a trillion-dollar corporation."
He said Florida would see Meta in court.
DeSantis backed Uthmeier's move publicly.
He told host Eric Bolling in August that the settlement was "chump change" and "a rounding error" for Meta.
He said Florida has a shot at a much bigger judgment by going to trial.
Then he sat silent while his own network's biggest star praised the deal on live television.
New Mexico Already Proved Florida Right
Here's what Hannity should know – and what every parent should understand.
New Mexico went to trial against Meta alone earlier this year.
What the jury heard was not abstract.
The evidence included internal company documents and testimony from former Meta employees showing that the platform's own design choices allowed sexual predators to reach children – while Meta's public statements insisted its apps were safe for kids.
Meta executives knew.
They disregarded warnings from their own staff.
https://twitter.com/GovRonDeSantis/status/2100038219005870508?s=20
They kept building anyway.
The jury came back with the maximum penalty allowed under law: $375 million.
Then the judge added another $567 million in remedies and injunctions.
Final tab: $942 million – from one state, with one jury.
Forty-seven states split $18 billion.
New Mexico alone extracted $942 million.
That math makes Florida's strategy look less like stubbornness and more like genius.
Meta pulled in $201 billion in revenue in 2025.
Spread the $18 billion settlement across ten years and it comes to roughly $1.8 billion annually – less than one percent of what the company makes in a year.
Zuckerberg's lawyers negotiated a penalty smaller than what Meta's stock routinely swings in a single afternoon.
Uthmeier called it one month's cash flow.
He was being generous.
Florida Is Swinging for Something Real
What Florida is betting on is that a jury – hearing the same internal documents, the same testimony about kids harmed by Instagram's addictive design – will react the way New Mexico's jury did.
Uthmeier put it plainly: "Corporations like Meta will never learn a lesson if they don't incur real costs for breaking the law."
That's not a press release.
https://twitter.com/gatewaypundit/status/2100212693278015584?s=20
That's a legal strategy, and it has a winning record.
A Florida judgment, in a much larger state with far more plaintiffs and a more aggressive attorney general, could dwarf what New Mexico won.
Hannity is a great American and has done more for conservative media than almost anyone alive.
But Tuesday night he handed Zuckerberg a compliment Florida's AG had already thrown in the trash – and DeSantis, to his discredit, sat there and let it happen.
The parents who appreciated the Meta settlement are the ones who took the check.
Florida parents are the ones still fighting.
Sources:
- A.G. Gancarski, "Meta mix-up: Sean Hannity hails settlement that Florida spiked during Ron DeSantis interview," Florida Politics, September 15, 2026.
- "Florida rejects Meta's $18B settlement in federal social media safety lawsuit," Fox 35 Orlando, August 26, 2026.
- "Florida now the sole state to reject share of $18B Meta youth safety settlement," WPTV, August 2026.
- "New Mexico Department of Justice Wins Landmark Verdict Against Meta," New Mexico Department of Justice, March 2026.
- "New Mexico Attorney General lauds 'historic' victory over Meta," Source New Mexico, August 7, 2026.
