Watershed settlement also requires Meta to bolster child-safety measures on Facebook and Instagram
The teen social media addiction suit filed by US states against Meta has concluded with the company agreeing to settle for a maximum amount of US$18 billion, reported The Associated Press.
If the court greenlights it, the watershed settlement will be paid out over a 10-year period. California is set to receive at least US$1.5 billion - the lion’s share of the settlement. Other states are expected to get hundreds of millions.
The funds will be applied to child-oriented mental health programs such as after-school or summer activities and digital literacy counselors. The settlement will end suits filed by 48 states, Washington, D.C. and certain US territories. However, New Mexico, which beat Meta in a trial this year, and Florida are not included.
James Uthmeier, Florida’s attorney general, said in a statement published by AP News that the settlement amounted to “peanuts” in light of the “profound harms Meta’s profit-driven addictive features inflicted on kids.” In 2025, Meta’s revenue was recorded at US$201 billion.
In addition to the payout, the settlement terms require Meta to implement safety features such as two-hour daily time limits that only parents are allowed to disable and imposed breaks for child users of Instagram and Facebook. Push notifications will be stopped during school hours on weekdays, and the company will implement age-assurance measures and controls on “age-appropriate content” to restrict bullying and exposure to damaging content regarding eating disorders and self-harm.
Social comparison metrics, including “like” counts, will be restricted. Moreover, parental controls will be enhanced and made more user-friendly.
An independent auditor will be appointed to evaluate the implementation and effectiveness of the proposed safety features. Meta called for TikTok and YouTube to implement similar features, as measures like the overnight block worked more effectively if implemented across platforms. Should its peers agree, Meta would bolster defaults on teens’ daily time limit and extend “night mode.”
The company stated that 30 percent of the settlement amount (~US$5.3 billion) would be paid to states only if its competitors adopted the same safety measures and made a similar payout. The payout would be divided between TikTok and YouTube. Google, which owns YouTube, and TikTok did not respond to requests for comment, according to AP News.
California attorney general Rob Bonta said in a statement published by AP News that the settlement agreement “institutes real change, real transparency, real protections for children and teens across the country.”
The settlement was lauded by advocates and parents of young suicide victims as an example of Meta taking accountability. Nonetheless, Sacha Haworth, The Tech Oversight Project’s executive director, pointed out in a statement published by AP News that children and teens could not be completely safe “until these protections are required on every platform and are permanent — that’s something only Congress can do.”
Ex-Meta engineering director Arturo Béjar added that while the settlement marked a major milestone, it still permitted Meta to set the definition of “harm.”
“It’s one thing to say, ‘Yeah, you only get like two hours of alcohol or two hours of cigarettes a day,’ but it’s still as bad for you because of what’s getting delivered,” he told a court in a statement published by AP News.
In 2023, 29 states filed a suit against Meta claiming that it aggravated mental health problems in youth through features designed to cultivate addiction in children. The suit alleged that Meta breached federal laws by regularly obtaining data on under-13s without parental approval.
California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey took Meta to trial last week in Oakland, California.
