Technology 4 min read By Mason Emerson
Meta agrees to $17.1 billion settlement and teen safety changes after addiction trial
Meta will pay at least $12.1 billion and overhaul Facebook and Instagram features for users under 18 as part of a landmark settlement with California and 28 other states over claims the company designed addictive platforms and misled young users about safety.
Meta has agreed to a landmark $17.1 billion settlement and sweeping changes to Facebook and Instagram for teenage users, resolving a lawsuit brought by California and 28 other states that accused the company of engineering addictive features and misleading young users about platform safety. The agreement, announced August 26, ends a jury trial that had begun last week in Oakland, California, and was expected to run for six weeks.
Under the terms, Meta will pay at least $12.1 billion over the next decade, with an additional $5 billion possible if competitors such as TikTok and YouTube adopt similar safeguards and make related payments. The company denied the allegations throughout the proceedings, and the settlement does not include an admission of wrongdoing. The lawsuit also claimed Meta unlawfully collected data from children under 13 without parental permission.
The agreement requires Meta to implement significant changes for accounts belonging to users under 18. Teenagers will face a two-hour daily limit across Facebook and Instagram, with pauses and reminders appearing after 15 minutes of continuous use and after 60 and 90 minutes of total use. Both apps will be blocked for users under 18 between midnight and 6am unless parents or guardians intervene, and notifications will be silenced between 10pm and 7am, as well as between 8am and 3pm on school days.
Meta will also be required to offer teenagers a non-personalised, chronological feed, hide like counts by default, and make unavailable filters that simulate extreme cosmetic procedures. California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the settlement will make social media less dangerous for children and deliver enforceable protections on Facebook and Instagram within months. Washington DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb called the agreement a monumental public health victory for young people.
Meta said ensuring teens have a safe and productive experience on its platforms is an absolute imperative, and it called on rivals to introduce similar measures, arguing that young people could simply transfer their time to other apps if safeguards were not in place there. The settlement comes weeks after a New Mexico court ordered Meta to pay $942 million and change its child protections after finding the company failed to prevent child sexual exploitation on its platforms; Meta said it intends to appeal that decision.
The case is part of a broader reckoning over social media's impact on young users. An upcoming film, The Social Reckoning, a follow-up to 2010's The Social Network, will dramatise the Facebook Files, in which whistleblower Frances Haugen released thousands of internal documents and accused the company of prioritising growth over user safety. Aaron Sorkin wrote the script and will direct, with Jeremy Strong portraying Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, Mikey Madison as Haugen, and Jeremy Allen White as journalist Jeff Horwitz. The film is scheduled for release on October 9.
