Meta Settlement Adds Teen Time Limits In $18 Billion State Deal
Meta agreed to a nearly $18 billion child-safety settlement framework that would impose teen time limits, school-hour controls and auditing duties on Facebook and Instagram, though Florida and New Mexico remain outside the main deal.
Meta agreed to a nearly $18 billion settlement framework that would impose default teen time limits and school-hour controls on Facebook and Instagram, Ars Technica reported from court filings and state attorney general announcements.
The deal would cut short a child-safety trial while leaving Florida and New Mexico outside the main agreement.
The central settlement needs approval from the US District Court for the Northern District of California and would run for 10 years.
It covers 47 states plus several US territories, with Texas announcing a separate $1 billion agreement that lifts the potential state payments close to $18 billion.
The settlement's teen-safety terms would put users under 18 under a default two-hour daily limit across Facebook and Instagram.
The count would include time across both apps and multiple detected accounts, while teens would receive prompts after 15 minutes of continuous use and when daily usage reaches 60 and 90 minutes.
The package also includes a midnight-to-6 a.m. default block and a school mode that mutes notifications from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The payment structure creates a large but conditional penalty.
The main agreement provides up to $16.7 billion, but Meta's minimum payment would be about $11.7 billion over 10 years because a $5 billion portion depends on TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat settling similar state claims on comparable terms.
A separate $459 million Cambridge Analytica privacy resolution was included in the $17.1 billion figure announced by state attorneys general.
State claims accused Meta of designing products to foster compulsive use by children and failing to warn users about addiction and mental-health risks.
Meta denies the allegations.
The trial had already started for California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey after an appeals court rejected Meta's Section 230 immunity argument, and Meta had argued that damages demands from the four states could exceed $1.4 trillion.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier rejected the multi-state deal on X as "peanuts" compared with the alleged harm and said Florida would continue to trial.
New Mexico is also outside the settlement after state-court judgments imposed a $375 million civil penalty and a separate $567 million fund tied to harms from its social media services; Meta is appealing that ruling.
The operational commitments go beyond time limits.
Meta would have to enhance teen reporting of potentially harmful content and respond to 90% of those reports within six hours, stop showing like and reaction counts to users under 18, ban cosmetic-procedure image filters for minors and offer a non-personalized feed option.
The settlement also calls for age-verification systems to detect users under 18, removal of children under 13, an independent auditor and an injunction against false or misleading safety statements.
