Meta has agreed to a settlement of up to $17.1 billion with 47 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories, resolving a lawsuit alleging child safety failures and violations of consumer protection and privacy laws on its Facebook and Instagram platforms.
The agreement mandates significant changes, including limiting teenagers to a cumulative two hours daily across Facebook and Instagram, blocking access to most features between midnight and 6 a.m., and muting most push notifications during school hours. Additionally, "take-a-break" prompts will now be enabled by default after 15 minutes, and like counts will be hidden for teens by default, reviving an earlier experiment known as "Project Daisy."
A key part of the settlement involves establishing an "independent social media research foundation," which Meta will share user data with (from consenting users) to study social media's impact on well-being. This comes after former data scientist George Volichenko testified that Meta made it difficult to implement effective teen safety features, and was told not to worry about low adoption rates for such tools as they existed "partially to protect the company against the upcoming lawsuits."
Meta's chief legal officer, C.J. Mahoney, said, "As a parent, I’m proud of both the work Meta has done to protect kids historically, and of this new groundbreaking agreement." However, the company is also leveraging the settlement to pressure rivals, stating that some safety features, like the two-hour time limit, will only remain for five years unless YouTube and TikTok adopt similar restrictions, extending the duration to 10 years. Meta also indicated it would pay the full $17.1 billion only if YouTube, TikTok, and Snap also settle their cases and agree to product changes.
The lawsuit alleged Meta had "actual knowledge that millions of Instagram users are under the age of 13," routinely documenting and analyzing this data while protecting it from public disclosure, in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Despite positioning itself as an industry leader, Meta still faces numerous other lawsuits from school districts and individuals, suggesting further legal challenges ahead.