Meta to enforce two-hour teen daily limit and night block under $18B state settlement
As part of an $18 billion settlement with 29 U.S. states, Meta will implement new safeguards for minors on Instagram and Facebook. These include a cumulative two-hour daily usage limit for teens that requires parental permission to extend, and a default block on app access between midnight and 6 a.m. The company will also offer a non-personalized feed option and mute notifications during school hours.
The settlement’s terms apply automatically to minors in 29 participating states, pending court approval, and most controls must remain active for a decade. Meta will also deploy stronger age-detection tools to catch users who claim to be adults, and it has publicly urged TikTok and YouTube to adopt similar restrictions. Notably, 30% of the settlement—about $5.3 billion—is contingent on those rival platforms implementing matching limits, a condition that could reshape industry-wide practices.
Beyond time limits and night blocks, the agreement introduces default changes to teens’ feeds, like hiding like counts and disabling autoplay. Parents gain the ability to set a non-personalized feed as the default experience, while teens receive 15-minute usage prompts. Meta also plans to block extreme makeup filters and mute notifications during school hours, though direct messages and security alerts remain accessible.
This settlement could set a precedent for how platforms handle teen safety, potentially pressuring competitors to adopt similar guardrails or face regulatory and public scrutiny. Parents may gain more control, but teens could feel restricted, leading to shifts in usage patterns or migration to other apps. The conditional payment structure may accelerate industry-wide changes, though enforcement and user workarounds remain open questions. Society could see a gradual normalization of stricter platform design for minors, affecting digital habits and mental health debates.