Meta has agreed a settlement with US states and territories to resolve claims that Facebook and Instagram harmed children, with payments of up to $18bn (£13.3bn) pending approval by a California judge.

Under the deal, Meta will pay a maximum amount to 48 states, the District of Columbia and three US territories. The payment would be the largest made by the company in child-safety litigation to date. The figure would be distributed in annual instalments over a 10-year period, Meta said.

Largest payment Sought In Child Safety Case

The settlement follows a lawsuit filed in 2023 by 29 states alleging the company breached federal and state child privacy laws. As part of the agreement, most of the US will be covered, although New Mexico is not included.

Last month, a federal judge in New Mexico issued a ruling against Meta, describing it as a “public nuisance” similar to air pollution, and ordered combined fines of almost $1bn.

New default Limits And Night Blocks

Alongside the financial settlement, Meta will introduce changes designed to strengthen protections for children using the platforms. Measures demanded by state attorneys include default daily time limits and blocks during night-time hours.

Meta said a feature that blocks notifications between midnight and 6am will be turned on by default, with settings designed to be switched off only by a parent or guardian. Separate “school mode” provisions would mute notifications between 08:00 and 15:00 on school days.

The agreement also includes a default two-hour daily time limit for teens, counted cumulatively across Instagram and Facebook, with the ability to disable the limit only with a parent’s permission. If other social media companies introduce similar restrictions, that daily limit would be reduced to one hour, Meta said, citing TikTok, Snap and YouTube as examples.

Other changes set out in the settlement include hiding likes on teen profiles and on posts they interact with, prompts that notify users when they reach 15 minutes of continuous use and then at 60 and 90 minutes of cumulative use, and allowing teens to choose a feed that is not driven by an algorithm.

Meta will also turn off autoplay for videos and other content for teen users, remove access to extreme make-up filters, and implement limits intended to reduce time spent on the platforms.

Trial Before Settlement And Denial Of Wrongdoing

Meta denied wrongdoing as part of the settlement. In statements on Wednesday, it said the planned changes would be rolled out alongside the payment.

The agreement came after a jury trial began last week in Oakland, California. State lawyers argued that Meta knew that millions of Instagram and Facebook users aged 11 and 12 were present on its platforms over the years, but “did little to keep them off”. The five-day trial relied on internal Meta records, including research documents, emails and chat logs reaching senior leadership, state lawyers said.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta said on Wednesday that the trial had not gone well for Meta. He also called the settlement “a major moment to clean up an industry that has been hurting our kids”.

During court testimony, Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, said Meta was “always working on teen safety” and described ongoing testing and research. The case was settled and court adjourned before he returned to give further testimony.

A former Meta researcher, George Volichenko, testified before settlement, describing difficulty in understanding why his team was not given more freedom to test and roll out safety features in 2022. He said that wider adoption of a muted-notifications feature called “quiet mode” was unlikely unless it was enabled by default. Under the settlement, notification blocking at night will be enabled by default.

Meta’s chief legal officer, C J Mahoney, said the framework agreed with states would enable parents to manage how children access the platforms. He also said the deal would only work if peers adopt similar safeguards, and urged TikTok and YouTube to implement the same measures.

Washington’s District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb called the settlement a “monumental public health victory”, adding that the required safety features would change how young people use Instagram and Facebook.

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27 August 2026

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I think an argument could be made that social media in general is fairly evil and has not been a much benefit to society and contemporary culture. You could go a step further and argue that one of the reasons why mankind has been moving backwards for the last 30 years is social media. Facebook is at the very Forefront of just how dark and malicious a social media company can become.

For businesses on Facebook you can easily become suspended simply by getting your account hacked, and there's no recourse whatsoever because there is no possibility of interacting with a human being in regard to customer service, and all the decisions are now made by bots. I have this very thing happen to me after being on the platform for Oprah decade spending thousands of dollars in sponsored ads and having over 5,000 followers for my business. There was absolutely no recourse of any kind available.

I consider social media to be the most destructive force in contemporary culture today. Children are growing up now in a world where they expect immediate response, gratification and notification. Their brains no longer have time to evolve; they must adapt to change in an instant, and the results are distressing. The difficulties of growing up have never been so public. Social technology provides a platform where things can run wild. Imagine the stress of high school – the competition for popularity, the pressure to fit in, the judgmental nature of social activities – at an accelerated pace. We try to protect our children from wandering off into the darkness on their own, and it turns out they are doing exactly that – online. When they get older and “ready,” we send them off to college, where they face more pressures. But social media has an infamous dark side and the more people share, the more serious this side becomes. As it turns out, living your life online has serious consequences for your self-esteem, your relationships, and your career prospects. 

And it is a strong indication of just how bent, warped and misguided contemporary culture and society is, that someone can be considered an idol or celebrity just because they have alot of followers on Tik tok, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. 

It is a great news, but still not enough. Meta must pay more for their crimes. Zuckerberg deep <deleted>.

Should'a been more. A lot more.

They'll look at $18billion as a reasonable cost of doing business, because they make a lot more than that on addicted kids. (Who grow up to be addicted adults.) So they'll keep on doing it. They'll just get better at hiding it, now that they know what will be used against them.

Edited Thursday at 04:55 AM5 days by impulse

...Add To That A Recent '50-Billion Dollar Fine'....& A '100-Billion Dollar Fine'... (?)

...Problem Is...Nobody Knows Where All This Money Ends Up...Time & Again... (?)

...Seems Like The Money Is Collected Then 'Secretly Divvied Up'... (?)

...Or Siphoned Or Redirected To/Through Nebulous Channels... (?)

I am interested in how Meta will handle the payment. Will they list it as a business expense? Will it lower their tax liability?

Meta is not paying in cash.

Wherever I go, I see toddlers on phones, no parental guidance or responsibility.

32 minutes ago, Chosenfew said:

Wherever I go, I see toddlers on phones, no parental guidance or responsibility.

So many parents around the world are giving up the art of parenting in exchange for a device. Hand the kid a device and you no longer have to be a parent for the day, or the month, or the year, or perhaps their entire childhood.

The real question is what will these people be like as adults? Will they be intellectually stunted?

Will they be criminals?

Will they grow up to be good people and responsible citizens?

It's a grand experiment and frankly I don't think it's going to turn out that well. Kids need guidance and they certainly don't get it from TikTok.

2 hours ago, SOTIRIOS said:

...Or Siphoned Or Redirected To/Through Nebulous Channels... (?)

Google ActBlue.

And yes, that's a wingnut conspiracy thing.

Not that ActBlue is horribly corrupt. That's been proven. I'm just not sure these particular ZuckBucks will be laundered that way.