The Meta child safety settlement ended a California federal trial over state allegations that Facebook and Instagram were built to foster compulsive use among young people and that Meta misled the public about their safety. Meta denied wrongdoing. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers approved the main multistate agreement late Wednesday, Reuters and CBC reported.
The arrangement covers claims from 47 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands, according to Reuters. The District of Columbia attorney general’s office described the broader agreement as resolving claims by 51 states and territories. Florida and New Mexico were outside this multistate resolution.
The headline number needs a little less hand-waving than usual. D.C.’s attorney general said Meta will pay at least $12.1 billion over 10 years, with another $5 billion due if Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube adopt comparable safeguards. That would bring the multistate total to $17.1 billion. Reuters reported roughly $12.7 billion as guaranteed and $5 billion as contingent. Texas reached a separate settlement worth more than $1 billion. Wednesday’s agreements also included $459.3 million to resolve state privacy claims connected to Cambridge Analytica, Reuters reported.
What changes must Meta make for teen users?
For five years, Meta must impose a combined two-hour daily limit across Facebook and Instagram for children, with breaks after 15 minutes of continuous use and at 60 and 90 minutes of total use, according to the D.C. attorney general’s announcement. The agreement also blocks access to feeds from midnight to 6 a.m. and turns off weekday school-year push notifications from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Age assurance is the mechanism intended to identify which accounts belong to young users so those restrictions can be applied. The deal also calls for stronger parental controls, age-appropriate content safeguards, limits on beauty filters and visible like counts, and regular reviews by an independent auditor overseen by settling states.
If Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube accept comparable terms, the arrangement gets stricter: the daily limit would fall to 60 minutes on each platform for 10 years, and Meta’s additional $5 billion obligation would be triggered, the D.C. announcement said. The agreement does not require Meta to stop personalized recommendations or targeted advertising, Reuters reported.
Why did Florida reject the Meta settlement?
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said his state would not join. In posts on X cited by Fox 35 Orlando and Ars Technica, Uthmeier called the payments “peanuts” and a “slap on the wrist,” arguing that Meta must face meaningful costs for alleged legal violations. He said Florida would see Meta at trial.
New Mexico also remains separate. It recently won judgments requiring Meta to pay civil penalties and fund efforts addressing a public nuisance tied to its services, according to Ars Technica; Meta is appealing. The settlement also does not end the wider litigation pileup. Meta and other social-media companies still face thousands of lawsuits from governments, school districts and individuals, CBC reported.
This story draws on original reporting from Ars Technica.
