Meta Settlement Sets Up $18 Billion Payment And Teen-Safety Defaults
A California court approved Meta’s settlement with 48 states, the District of Columbia and three U.S. territories, requiring up to $18 billion in payments and default limits for teen Instagram and Facebook users.
Meta will pay up to $18 billion and change how teenagers use Instagram and Facebook under a settlement with U.S. states and territories, BBC Technology reported, turning a child-safety lawsuit into a court-approved package of money and product restrictions.
A California judge approved the deal during a federal trial in Oakland.
The payment covers 48 states, the District of Columbia and three U.S. territories, making it Meta’s largest child-safety litigation payment to date.
The settlement requires Meta to add default protections for younger users rather than leaving every control to manual opt-in.
Night mode will block notifications between midnight and 6 a.m. unless a parent or guardian turns the setting off, and school mode will mute notifications between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. on school days.
The agreement also sets a default two-hour daily limit across Instagram and Facebook for teen accounts, hides likes on teen profiles and on accounts they interact with, adds prompts after 15 minutes of continuous use, and creates notifications after cumulative use reaches 60 and 90 minutes.
Teen users will also be able to switch away from recommendation-ranked feeds and disable automatic playback for videos and content.
The court record followed a lawsuit filed in 2023 by 29 states accusing Meta of violations of federal and state child privacy laws.
State lawyers built the trial case around Meta’s knowledge of under-13 users on Instagram and Facebook and the states’ claim that the company failed to keep those children off the platforms.
Internal Meta documents became a central part of the case, including research, employee emails and chat logs that reached chief executive Mark Zuckerberg.
One Instagram research note characterized teen use in addiction-like terms.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta framed the settlement as a major industry cleanup moment for children’s safety.
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers approved the agreement as a fair and comprehensive approach that provides monetary relief and changes conduct tied to the alleged harms.
Meta’s settlement position keeps its denial of wrongdoing while placing the payment on an annual instalment schedule over 10 years.
The company maintained during the trial that it had spent years testing safety measures, conducting research and building new features for younger users.
C J Mahoney, Meta’s chief legal officer, said the negotiated framework would help parents manage how children access the company’s platforms.
The company’s peer-platform condition leaves the system dependent on whether TikTok, Snap and YouTube join similar restrictions.
The daily time limit for teen users will fall to one hour if TikTok, Snap and YouTube also agree to implement new restrictions for young users, leaving the settlement’s strictest usage cap tied to whether rival platforms adopt comparable rules.
