Meta to pay $16.68 billion in settlement over child social media harms

Meta has reached a landmark settlement of up to $16.68 billion with 29 U.S. states, agreeing to resolve lawsuits that accused the company of designing Facebook and Instagram to be addictive for children. The tech giant will also implement major changes to its platforms as part of the agreement, which addresses claims that Meta misled consumers about the safety of its services and improperly collected personal data from underage users.

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Ensuring teens have a safe and productive experience on our platforms is an absolute imperative for Meta.

Under the terms of the settlement, Meta will introduce daily usage limits and restrictions on nighttime use for children on Facebook and Instagram. Additionally, the company will prevent minors from accessing age-restricted content. These changes aim to mitigate the alleged harms caused by the platforms' design and data collection practices.

The settlement also resolves privacy lawsuits stemming from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where a consulting firm improperly obtained personal data from millions of Facebook users. The states contended that Meta violated the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act by collecting children's personal data without parental notification or consent, and subsequently used this data to train machine learning and generative AI models.

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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.

While Meta denied wrongdoing in agreeing to the settlement, the company stated its commitment to ensuring a safe experience for teens. "Ensuring teens have a safe and productive experience on our platforms is an absolute imperative for Meta," the company said in a statement. "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."

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Meta has agreed to pay up to $16.68 billion as a settlement to resolve lawsuits by 29 US states, alleging that the company designed Facebook and Instagram to be addictive for children.

This agreement comes amidst a broader wave of lawsuits targeting social media companies, including Snapchat, YouTube, and TikTok, for their alleged role in contributing to a youth mental health crisis. The states had initially sought significantly higher penalties, with some proposals reaching up to $1.4 trillion.

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The states claimed Meta violated the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act by collecting their personal data without parental notification or consent.