Meta has agreed to pay up to $17.1 billion to settle lawsuits brought by US states and territories over allegations that Facebook and Instagram were designed to keep children and teenagers engaged despite risks to their mental health and privacy.
The settlement, reached with a bipartisan group of 52 attorneys general, also requires Meta to introduce sweeping new restrictions on how teenagers use its platforms, including daily time limits, overnight blocks, stronger parental controls and additional age-assurance measures.
Meta denies wrongdoing and is not admitting liability as part of the settlement.
The agreement follows a high-profile federal trial in which states accused Meta of deliberately designing addictive features and failing to adequately protect young users. The claims also included allegations that the company collected data from children under 13 without proper parental consent.
What Meta has agreed to change
Under the settlement, Facebook and Instagram will introduce stricter controls for users under 18.
These include a two-hour daily usage limit, default restrictions on access between midnight and 6 a.m., muted notifications during school hours and stronger parental controls. Meta will also strengthen age-assurance measures and restrictions around age-inappropriate content.
The company said the restrictions are intended to give parents greater control over how their teenagers use its platforms.
“Ensuring teens have a safe and productive experience on our platforms is an absolute imperative for Meta. We want to get this right for parents and teens, and that’s why we partnered with state attorneys general to set a new industry standard,” Meta said.
The financial settlement will be paid in annual instalments over 10 years. Meta said about $12.7 billion of the roughly $18 billion could be distributed to participating states under the initial terms, while another $5.3 billion is contingent on YouTube and TikTok adopting specified safeguards and matching the payments.
Meta also urged the two platforms to adopt similar restrictions, arguing that protections will have limited effect if young users can simply move to competing services.
“Our new Time Limit commitments, Night Mode features and usage limits during school hours set the right path forward for our whole industry, but this framework will only work if all our peers join us,” Meta’s chief legal officer, C.J. Mahoney, said.
A wider reckoning for social media
The settlement does not end the legal pressure on Meta or the wider social media industry.
States, school districts and individuals have filed thousands of lawsuits against major platforms including Meta, TikTok, YouTube and Snap, alleging that their products contribute to addiction, anxiety, depression, body-image problems and other harms among young users.
The companies have denied that their platforms caused the alleged harms and have pointed to measures they say are designed to protect children.
The Meta settlement also resolves separate privacy claims involving California, Illinois, New Mexico and Washington, D.C., related to the company’s handling of Facebook user data, including allegations stemming from the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Those jurisdictions will receive about $459.3 million under the agreement.
US officials described the agreement as a major shift in how social media companies are expected to protect young users.
District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb called it a “monumental public health victory”, while California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the changes would “make social media less dangerous for our kids and make a world of a difference for children and their families.”
For Meta, however, the settlement is also a substantial financial hit. The company said it expects to record about $10 billion in legal expenses in the third quarter of 2026 as a result of the agreement.
The settlement still requires court approval and does not resolve thousands of other lawsuits facing Meta and its competitors.
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