Above all else since turning public, Meta is in the business of making money. It's not illegal to target user's vulnerabilities in order to get the user to spend more time or money on their platform. It's unethical as hell, but it's business 101 - the shareholders would revolt if Zuck came out and said "here's this opportunity to make you all a ton of money, but we're placing our personal ethics above doing this, so we're not". He'd get sued for breach of fiduciary duty.
Now, are Meta's product strategies unethical (or questionably ethical), harmful to society, and setting bad precedent? Yeah, I'd agree with that. But the market and shareholders like money.
Above all else since turning public, Meta is in the business of making money. It's not illegal to target user's vulnerabilities in order to get the user to spend more time or money on their platform. It's unethical as hell, but it's business 101 - the shareholders would revolt if Zuck came out and said "here's this opportunity to make you all a ton of money, but we're placing our personal ethics above doing this, so we're not". He'd get sued for breach of fiduciary duty.
Now, are Meta's product strategies unethical (or questionably ethical), harmful to society, and setting bad precedent? Yeah, I'd agree with that. But the market and shareholders like money.