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Meta has agreed to pay up to $18 billion to settle claims from 29 U.S. states over children’s safety.
The lawsuit alleged that the social media giant knowingly designed platforms like Instagram and Facebook to addict children, despite knowing about the harms the platforms could pose to young users. The states also claimed that Meta knowingly collected data from children without parental knowledge, which violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
By settling, Meta is not admitting that it’s guilty of these claims, but it shows the company’s reluctance to move forward with a jury trial.
Meta is framing its settlement as a call to action for YouTube and TikTok to adopt a set of protections for teens and controls for parents, which it developed in collaboration with 52 state attorneys general. Pending judicial approval, these protections will include the following terms, which will remain for 10 years:
- A default two-hour daily time limit, cumulative across both Facebook and Instagram; at 60 and 90 minutes, teens will be alerted about their daily usage, and they will also see prompts at 15-minute intervals to “encourage intentional use,” per Meta’s description
- A default block from Meta’s apps between midnight and 6 AM (known as “Night Mode”), plus muted notifications from 8 AM to 3 PM, when teens should be in school (“School Mode”)
- A default block for teens on seeing the number of likes and reactions on both their own posts and others’ posts
- A block for teens on using what Meta describes as “extreme makeup filters,” building on its existing block of cosmetic surgery filters
- Further investment in age assurance technology to proactively identify accounts that might belong to users under 13 years old, or accounts that might belong to teens but were registered with an adult birthday
While Meta already defaults teens into private Facebook and Instagram accounts, the company says it will strengthen its work to prevent adults from finding, following, and interacting with teens. Meta has also vowed to strengthen its existing parental controls and improve its response times to harmful content reports from teens.
Meta adds that direct messages are not included in time limits or muted notification periods so that teens can “stay connected with friends and family.”
Meta’s $18 billion settlement will be distributed to states over a 10-year period, but 30% of that settlement — about $5.3 billion — will only be paid out if YouTube and TikTok implement a one-hour daily time limit, Night Mode, and age assurance measures. These platforms must also agree to pay an amount matching the 30% figure.
“Because teens move fluidly across dozens of apps, we need an industry-wide solution,” Meta’s Chief Legal Officer, C.J. Mahoney, said in a statement. “We therefore call on our industry peers, TikTok and YouTube, to implement this new framework, right away.”
Meta says that it will pay a $10 billion legal expense in the third quarter of this year, which will impact the company’s expenses and profit; however, Meta’s stock has risen on the news of the settlement.
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