Meta has agreed to pay as much as $17.1 billion and introduce new restrictions for teen users to settle lawsuits brought by 29 US states alleging that Facebook and Instagram were designed to be addictive for children.
The settlement, disclosed in court filings on Wednesday, avoids a closely watched federal trial in which Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg could have been called to testify.
The states had accused Meta of violating consumer-protection laws, designing its platforms in ways that encouraged children to use them excessively and collecting personal data from children without proper parental consent.
Meta has denied the allegations and maintained that it has taken steps to make its platforms safer for younger users.
Under the agreement, Meta will pay at least $12.1 billion over 10 years, according to the office of the attorney general for the District of Columbia. The amount could rise by another $5 billion, taking the potential value of the settlement to $17.1 billion, if other major social media companies agree to implement comparable child-safety measures.
Meta said the settlement builds on measures it has already introduced to protect teenagers and give parents greater control over their children’s use of its platforms.
“Ensuring teens have a safe and productive experience on our platforms is an absolute imperative for Meta,” the company said. “We want to get this right for parents and teens, and that’s why we partnered with state attorneys general to set a new industry standard.”
The agreement includes a range of measures aimed at limiting teenagers’ use of Meta’s platforms. These include strict daily time limits, blocking access to the apps during specified nighttime hours, muting notifications during school hours and expanding parental controls.
Meta said, however, that some measures, including nighttime restrictions, remain conditional. They would be introduced only if rival platforms such as TikTok and YouTube adopt comparable limits.
The company expects the new measures to take about six months to roll out.
Meta also urged TikTok and YouTube to adopt the same restrictions, arguing that measures imposed by only one platform would have a limited effect because teenagers frequently switch between social media applications.
“For meaningful progress to happen, we urge TikTok and YouTube to join us and state attorneys general in adopting this new standard, to ensure teens use social media in a healthy and responsible way,” Meta said in an open letter to the two companies.
The settlement represents a major development in the growing legal and regulatory scrutiny of social media platforms over their impact on children and teenagers.
