Attorney General Tim Griffin issued the following statement announcing that he and 50 other attorneys general have reached a settlement with Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, resolving litigation regarding the safety of children while using Meta’s platforms:
“This is a proud day for Arkansas. In March 2023, two months after I took office as Attorney General, we became the first state to sue Meta for violations of a state Deceptive Trade Practices Act for misleading minors and their parents about the addictive nature of its platforms’ algorithms. For years, Meta represented that its platforms posed no risk to the mental health of young people, all while knowing that its algorithms were designed to get kids hooked and to keep them online for as long as possible, with well-documented adverse mental health consequences.
“Arkansas was first through the litigation door, but many more states and territories followed. Today, Meta has agreed to settle with Arkansas and 50 other attorneys general for a total of $17.1 billion. This landmark settlement is the largest ever with a Big Tech company. While the parties have agreed to these terms, the proposed Settlement Agreement remains subject to court approval and will not become effective unless approved by the Court.
“I am immensely grateful to the incredible attorneys and other staff in my office who have invested countless hours working on this case and helped secure this historic result for Arkansas and its children.
“Arkansas’s guaranteed portion of the settlement will be $172,459,936 and could end up even higher. In addition to the payment, Meta must implement a sweeping set of safety features designed to protect children on Instagram and Facebook.”
The safety features that Meta will be required to implement on Facebook and Instagram include:
- Hard cap 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.
- “Nighttime blocks” restricting children’s access from 12:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m.
- Limited school-time access for children, eliminating push notifications on weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. during the school year.
- Robust age assurance measures to more effectively 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, that have been linked to poor mental health outcomes in kids and teens.
- Both the implementation and efficacy of the features will be regularly assessed by an independent auditor and the settling states.
Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders added the following statement:
“This historic settlement is a testament to the hard work of states like Arkansas that led on this fight to protect kids online. We will continue to hold Big Tech accountable, and I am hopeful other social media companies will follow Meta’s lead accepting responsibility for the harm their platforms have done to kids and begin to right this wrong.”
In addition to Attorney General Griffin, the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Northern Mariana Islands, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming joined the settlement.
Photo Credit: iStock/wijitpanya
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