Meta has reached a significant settlement with 48 states, the District of Columbia, and three US territories to resolve widespread allegations that its platforms, Facebook and Instagram, have caused harm to children. If finalized by a California judge, the agreement will require the social media giant to pay up to $18 billion (£13.3 billion) in what represents the company’s largest financial commitment to date regarding child safety litigation.
The settlement, which follows a 2023 lawsuit initially filed by 29 states, addresses accusations that Meta violated federal and state child privacy laws. While the company has denied any wrongdoing, it confirmed that the $18 billion payment will be distributed in annual installments over a 10-year period. California Attorney General Rob Bonta hailed the deal as a “major moment to clean up an industry that has been hurting our kids,” while District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb described it as a “monumental public health victory” that will fundamentally alter how young people interact with these platforms.
The legal pressure on Meta intensified during a recent jury trial in an Oakland, California, federal court. State lawyers utilized millions of internal documents—including emails, research, and chat logs involving CEO Mark Zuckerberg—to argue that the company knowingly allowed millions of 11- and 12-year-olds to remain on its platforms despite internal findings that teens often described their usage with an “addict’s narrative.” Bonta noted that the trial proceedings were not going well for the company before the settlement was reached.
As part of the agreement, Meta must implement a series of mandatory safety features. These include a default “night mode” that blocks notifications between midnight and 6:00 AM, and a “school mode” that mutes alerts during school hours from 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM. Additionally, the platforms will enforce a default two-hour daily time limit, which can only be extended with parental permission. Other changes include hiding “likes” on teen profiles, disabling extreme make-up filters, providing options for non-algorithmic feeds, and allowing users to turn off video autoplay. The company will also issue prompts to teens after 15 minutes of continuous use, with further notifications at 60 and 90 minutes.
Meta’s chief legal officer, C.J. Mahoney, stated that these measures are designed to empower parents to manage their children’s access. However, the company emphasized that this framework is intended to be an industry-wide standard, urging competitors like TikTok, Snap, and YouTube to adopt similar safety protocols. Meta noted that if these other platforms implement comparable restrictions, the daily time limit for teens could be further reduced to one hour.
The settlement comes amid a broader legal landscape regarding social media safety. Notably, New Mexico is not part of this agreement; last month, a federal judge in that state ruled against Meta, labeling it a “public nuisance” comparable to air pollution and ordering nearly $1 billion in fines. Former Meta researcher George Volichenko, who testified during the California trial, previously expressed frustration that his team was discouraged from implementing safety features like “quiet mode” because the company prioritized legal protection over adoption figures.
While Meta maintained during the trial that it has consistently invested in teen safety—a sentiment echoed by Instagram head Adam Mosseri during his testimony—the new court-mandated framework represents a shift toward stricter, default-on protections. Bonta warned that if other social media companies do not follow this “good blueprint,” his office will focus its efforts on forcing changes across the entire industry. YouTube and TikTok have been contacted for comment regarding the potential for similar industry-wide safety shifts. The report also notes that finally, something was done’ – Parent reacts to social media trial settlement. The report also notes that state lawyers relied heavily on information found in millions of internal Meta documents provided in the case, although the trial had only gone on for five days. The report also notes that pouring resources into testing and research, and building new features, meta maintained throughout the brief trial that it had worked extensively over the years to make its platforms safer for its youngest users. The report also notes that volichenko said he struggled to understand when he was at the company in 2022 why the team he worked on wasn’t given more freedom to better test and implement new safety features. The report also notes that his team knew such a feature would be much more widely adopted if Meta turned it on by default. The report also notes that because the team exists partially to protect the company against the upcoming lawsuits”, he recalled his manager telling him he “shouldn’t worry too much about the adoption figures being low. The report also notes that school mode”, or a mute on notifications between 08:00 and 15:00 during school days.
