Meta has agreed to pay up to $18 billion and impose new restrictions on how teenagers use Facebook and Instagram to settle claims brought by most US states that the social media giant deliberately designed its platforms to keep children hooked and misled the public about their safety.
The settlements, announced on Wednesday, bring an end to a closely watched federal trial that had put Meta’s business practices and its treatment of young users under intense scrutiny, while also setting new limits on how teenagers can use its platforms.
Under the agreement, Meta will restrict teenagers’ use of Facebook and Instagram to two hours a day for the next 10 years, while access will be blocked between midnight and 6 a.m. unless parents give permission.
The company will also strengthen measures aimed at preventing children from accessing age-restricted content, although it will not be required to abandon personalised recommendations or targeted advertising, two major components of its social media business.
Meta denied wrongdoing as part of the settlement but said it was committed to improving the experience of young users.
“Ensuring teens have a safe and productive experience on our platforms is an absolute imperative for Meta,” the company said in a statement, adding that it wants to “get this right for parents and teens.”
The agreement involves payments of more than $17.6 billion to 48 US states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.
Meta will separately pay $459 million to settle state privacy claims linked to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which the British consulting firm obtained personal information belonging to millions of Facebook users.
California is expected to receive the largest share of the settlement at about $2.2 billion, while New York and Texas will each receive more than $1 billion.
Some of the payments are tied to whether other major social media platforms, including Google’s YouTube and ByteDance’s TikTok, introduce similar protections for children.
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser described the agreement as a significant victory for states seeking stronger safeguards for young users.
“The focus of this case was to protect our kids,” Weiser said, arguing that the measures secured through the settlement go beyond what a court would likely have ordered.
The agreement still requires approval from US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who presided over the trial, which began on August 18.
The case had been one of the most closely watched legal challenges to the business practices of social media companies, with states accusing Meta of using features designed to increase engagement while knowing that some could contribute to excessive use among young people.
The company had previously argued that it could not have deceived consumers because “social media addiction” was not recognised as a psychiatric condition.
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The states had initially sought vastly larger penalties. Meta said before the trial that four states, California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey, were seeking as much as $1.4 trillion in penalties, while the states put the potential figure closer to $200 billion.
The settlement therefore represents a major reduction from the maximum penalties that had been discussed during the legal battle, although the financial hit remains substantial for Meta.
Northwestern University law professor James Speta said the agreement could have a noticeable impact on how users experience Facebook and Instagram.
“Meta and other companies were facing pressure to change business practices whether or not they lost the lawsuits,” Speta said, noting that the pressure had come from the public, Congress and state legislatures.
The restrictions, he added, are designed to reduce engagement and could change the way teenagers interact with Meta’s platforms.
The settlement comes as Meta and other major social media companies face a wider legal battle over allegations that their platforms have contributed to a youth mental health crisis.
Meta, Google, TikTok and Snap continue to face thousands of lawsuits from parents, individuals, school districts, states and local governments alleging that the companies knowingly developed features that encouraged children to spend excessive amounts of time on their platforms.
Meta also faces thousands of individual and government lawsuits, with additional trials expected to begin in Los Angeles in October.
The company has suffered several legal setbacks in cases involving youth safety.
Earlier this year, a New Mexico jury found Meta liable in a case brought by the state over the safety of its platforms, ordering the company to pay $375 million in March, while a judge on August 6 ordered Meta to pay another $567 million and introduce additional youth-safety measures.
In another case in March, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and Google’s parent company Alphabet negligent in designing their platforms and ordered the companies to pay $6 million to a woman who said she became addicted to Instagram and YouTube as a child and later suffered anxiety and depression.
Meta and Google have said they will appeal those verdicts.
Not all states joined Wednesday’s settlement, although New Mexico and Florida remain outside the agreement, with Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier dismissing the payouts as inadequate compared with what he described as the harm caused by Meta’s business model.
“The payouts to the states are peanuts compared to the profound harms Meta’s profit-driven addictive features have inflicted on our children,” Uthmeier said, adding that Florida would continue with its case.
The settlement does not end the wider legal battle facing Meta, but it marks one of the most significant efforts yet by US authorities to force a major social media company to change how its platforms operate for young users.
About the Author
Cecilia Attah is a tech analyst with a degree from Benue State University. She covers tech news and startups at TechRegard with a focus on how technology is transforming Africa and shaping the global landscape.
