Meta has agreed to pay $17 billion and add child-safety reforms on Instagram and Facebook in a multistate settlement announced Wednesday by Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser.
Colorado will receive around $615 million over nine years for its part of the settlement, Weiser said. The money will go toward mental health and safety programs for Colorado children.
“The relief we are getting in this settlement is very meaningful and well beyond what any court has ordered or is likely to order,” Weiser said. “The focus of this case was to protect our kids — stopping notifications and alerts at night and when they are in school, encouraging them to take breaks from social media, protecting them against harmful features, implementing age assurance technology and more. Today’s action is an important step forward, and I welcome Meta’s decision to accept responsibility and to collaborate with the multistate coalition to protect kids who deserve better.”
The settlement ends a landmark lawsuit brought by Colorado, California, Kentucky and New Jersey that was underway in an Oakland, Calif., courtroom. The states were seeking billions in damages in their effort to hold Meta accountable for how its platforms engage with users younger than 18.
“Ensuring teens have a safe and productive experience on our platforms is an absolute imperative for Meta,” the company said following the settlement announcement. “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.”
According to the settlement Meta will be required implement a series of safety features on Instagram and Facebook, including:
- Hard cap daily time limits and “Productive Pauses” for children: for Instagram and Facebook, a combined two-hour daily time limit with mandatory pauses after 15 minutes of continuous use and again at 60 and 90 minutes to interrupt endless scrolling. These limits remain in effect for five years. If Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube adopt comparable terms, the daily limit on each platform will drop to 60 minutes for 10 years.
- “Nighttime blocks” restricting children’s access from midnight to 6 a.m.
- Limited school-time access for children, eliminating push notifications on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. during the school year.
- Age assurance measures to verify the age of young users.
- Safer, age-appropriate content controls, including stronger safeguards against bullying, content promoting eating disorders and content related to suicide and self-harm.
- Stronger, more user-friendly parental controls.
- Limits on social comparison features, including beauty filters and visible “like” counts, which have been linked to poor mental health outcomes in kids and teens.
- Both the implementation and effectiveness of the features will be regularly assessed by an independent auditor and the settling states.
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