Meta to pay $18bn and add teen protections in settlement over addiction claims
Meta has agreed to pay up to $18bn and implement daily usage limits and nighttime blocks for teens on Instagram and Facebook. The settlement ends a lawsuit brought by 29 US states alleging the company designed addictive products harming children. Meta denies wrongdoing but will make the changes within months.
The settlement, announced Wednesday in federal court in Oakland, follows a trial that opened just last week, with California and 28 other states alleging Meta deliberately engineered addictive features and collected data on children under 13 without parental consent. The $18bn payout will be distributed across states over a decade, with California receiving up to $2.1bn and Colorado about $615m. Meta’s chief legal officer emphasized that the new safeguards—including daily time limits, blocked nighttime access, and bans on plastic surgery filters—would only be effective if competitors like TikTok, Snap, and YouTube adopt similar measures, and he called on them to do so immediately. The company continues to deny all wrongdoing, while thousands of similar lawsuits from families and school districts remain pending.
This settlement could reshape how social media platforms design features for minors, potentially setting a precedent for other tech companies facing similar litigation. If rivals adopt Meta’s framework, teens may see consistent usage limits and nighttime blocks across apps, which could reduce exposure to addictive patterns. However, the impact may be uneven, as enforcement and compliance vary, and critics may argue that financial penalties, while large, do not address underlying algorithmic incentives. Families and schools could gain new tools to manage screen time, but broader societal effects on teen mental health remain uncertain without long-term data.