A landmark $17.1 billion multistate settlement has been signed between state attorneys general and Meta Platforms, Inc., the ownership company of Instagram and Facebook.
Meta’s CEO Mark Zukerberg also agreed to implement a sweeping set of safety features designed to protect children who use those two social media platforms.
The states claimed that Meta knowingly exposed young users to serious mental harms and intentionally misled the public about the safety of its platforms. Meta officially denied the claims but agreed to the settlement.
Nebraska will receive up to $201 million under the settlement, Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers said. In all, 47 states plus D.C. and the U.S. territories claimed that Meta designed Instagram with addictive features.
This is the largest state consumer protection settlement in history, aside from the Big Tobacco settlements of the 1990s, Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers said.
Meta is the first major social media platform to reach a significant settlement. with requirements which will set into place provisions for youth safety. There is hope, and incentives, that other platforms such as YouTube, Tik Tok and Snapchat follow suit.
“We got into this fight to protect kids, and this settlement is a historic step in that direction. This agreement provides real changes that will make a big difference in the lives of kids and their parents,” Hilgers said.
The reforms require Meta to implement:
- Caps on daily time limits and “Productive Pauses” for children: for its two platforms, 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.
- Block children’s access from midnight to 6 a.m.
- Limit school-time access for children, eliminating push notifications on weekdays from 8 a.m.-3 p.m. during the school year.
- More effectively verify the age of young users.
- Strengthen safeguards against bullying, content promoting eating disorders, and content related to suicide and self-harm.
- Stronger, more user-friendly parental controls.
- Limit social comparisons, including beauty filters and visible “like” counts, that have been linked to poor mental health outcomes in kids and teens.
Hilgers said these changes to both apps are larger than previously ordered by any court. The settlement aims to represent an industry-wide social media experience that allows kids to connect in a healthy way.
The $17 billion settlement is equivalent to roughly 8.5% of Meta’s entire 2025 revenue, according to a report at TheConversation.com.
The Conversation reported that if TikTok and YouTube join the framework, Meta has committed to tighten its own rules further, cutting the daily limit to one hour per app and extending nighttime restrictions from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.
Arturo Béjar, a former employee who worked directly with Zuckerberg, testified that Zuckerberg lied about the company’s commitment to child safety and ignored warnings about harmful content.
According to a report in The Guardian, Béjar still believes that algorithmic design choices that make Facebook and Instagram addictive and harmful remain unchanged by the agreement and its time limits. Bejar had hoped the agreement would have done more to address how social networks’ algorithms steer young users toward content.
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