Meta has agreed to pay up to $18 billion in a settlement with 29 US states and territories addressing lawsuits alleging the company’s platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, harm children through addictive features and privacy violations [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. The settlement, approved by a federal judge in California, ends a landmark trial accusing Meta of causing teen addiction and breaching children’s privacy laws [8, 3].
Under the agreement, Meta will set a default daily time limit of two hours for users under 18, which can be lifted only with parental approval [1, 2, 3, 9, 10, 5]. The company will also ban unlimited scrolling for teens, stop autoplay videos by default, mute push notifications during school hours and overnight from midnight to 6 a.m., and disable like counts for under-18 users [1, 2, 3, 9, 10, 5]. Extreme cosmetic filters will be prohibited on accounts of minors [1, 2, 3, 10].
Meta must improve age verification and parental control tools to better identify children under 13 and remove those without parental consent from its platforms [1, 10, 7]. Independent auditors will verify the company’s compliance with these child safety measures [1]. The settlement explicitly allows Meta to retain some children’s data for developing better age verification models, with state attorneys general waiving further claims under COPPA and similar laws [7].
If major competitors YouTube and TikTok adopt comparable child safety protections and settle their own lawsuits — with payments around $5 billion each — Meta will pay an additional $5 billion as part of an industry-wide push for safer platforms [3, 10, 4, 5].
The $18 billion will be distributed over 10 years to fund youth mental health programs, crisis hotlines, afterschool activities, and digital literacy projects [10, 5]. Meta denies wrongdoing but settled amid extensive legal challenges and ongoing litigation in other states and school districts [11, 3, 5].
Following the US settlement, UK government officials urged Meta to implement equivalent child safety measures on its UK platforms, with Britain’s Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden stating, "We don’t want a situation where young people in America have got a higher rate of protection than young people in the UK" [9]. The European Union also called for similar protections during ongoing investigations [10]. EU Commission Spokesperson Rainier said, "Meta knows our expectations. Now it should commit to protecting European children at least as well as in the US" [10].
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weather said, "This case is about protecting our kids: stopping notifications overnight and during school, encouraging breaks, and protecting them from harmful features" [3]. Meta Chief Legal Officer CJ Mahoney added, "Only if all peers join us, this framework will succeed because teens switch between apps" [3].
The settlement follows reports on August 25 that Meta was negotiating with 29 states, with the agreement formalized on August 26 and submitted to California federal court the same day [2, 8, 11, 3, 4, 5]. UK and EU government calls for alignment came on August 27 [9, 10].
