Meta Platforms has agreed to pay billions of dollars and overhaul core features of Facebook and Instagram to settle claims from dozens of U.S. states that the company designed its platforms to be addictive to children.
The agreement, announced Wednesday and reported by Reuters, The New York Times, and others, ends one of the most closely watched legal tests yet of allegations that social media companies contributed to a youth mental health crisis. Meta denied wrongdoing as part of the settlement, the news outlets reported.
Reuters reported a maximum payout of $16.68 billion tied to claims from 29 states, plus a separate $459.3 million to resolve privacy lawsuits linked to the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. The New York Times put the figure at up to $17.1 billion, covering 47 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories, with an initial payment of about $12 billion and a further $5 billion contingent on rival platforms Snap, TikTok and YouTube also reaching settlements.
Product changes target child use
At the center of the case were product features that lawyers for the states argued kept children scrolling and engaged for hours, often at the expense of sleep and mental health.
Under the settlement, Meta will impose daily time limits on Instagram and Facebook use by teenagers and restrict access overnight. Notifications will be silenced during school hours and late at night, and the company has agreed to interrupt features that encourage endless scrolling.
Meta also agreed to limit tools that researchers have linked to negative social comparison among young users, including beauty filters and visible counts of "likes" on posts. The company committed to stronger age verification systems and expanded parental controls, both outlets reported.
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said in a statement carried by The New York Times that the case was aimed at protecting children by curbing nighttime alerts, encouraging breaks from the platforms and limiting harmful features. He said the settlement went further than what courts might otherwise have ordered.
C.J. Mahoney, Meta's chief legal officer, wrote in a company blog post that Meta wanted teenagers to have "a safe and productive experience" on its platforms and called on competitors to adopt similar standards, saying an industrywide approach was needed because teenagers use many apps at once.
Broader legal exposure remains
The settlement halts a federal trial in Oakland, California, where four states had sought penalties they estimated at close to $200 billion, and separately ends a trial in Nashville, Tennessee, brought by that state's attorney general.
Meta still faces thousands of other lawsuits from school districts, individual families and additional states over similar claims, some scheduled for trial in the coming months. Snap, YouTube-owner Alphabet and TikTok-owner ByteDance also remain defendants in related litigation alleging their platforms were designed to foster compulsive use among minors.
Earlier this year, a New Mexico jury and judge separately ordered Meta to pay more than $940 million combined after finding the company misled consumers about platform safety and created a public nuisance, according to Reuters. In a separate case, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and Google liable for a young plaintiff's depression and anxiety, ordering the companies to pay $6 million. Meta has said it will appeal that verdict.
Governments outside the United States have also moved to restrict children's social media use. Australia last year became the first country to bar children under 16 from social media platforms, and Denmark, France, Germany and several other nations have adopted or are weighing similar measures.
