India, Aug. 27 -- Meta's $18 billion settlement - one of the largest in US history - with 48 American states and three territories may look like poetic justice. The social media giant is said to have faced its reckoning over alarming practices to prioritise revenue, causing severe harm to some of its most vulnerable user groups. It raises an important question, though: Is the settlement punitive enough? There are two considerations here. First, the payout itself: Meta settled the 2023 lawsuit - over fuelling social media addiction, misleading the public about harm, and data privacy breaches - within days of the trial beginning. Whether the company dodged a much larger anticipated penalty or wished to avoid more damning disclosures remains...