The parent company of Facebook and Instagram will pay hundreds of millions of dollars to Colorado, part of an $18 billion multistate deal, in which the company also agreed to adopt extensive child-safety changes to its operations.
The settlement ended a trial over teen social media addiction and settled claims filed by nearly every state. It resolved a pivotal case years in the making that sought to hold the tech giant accountable for the role its platforms played in allegedly undermining children’s mental health. The effort targeted features designed to hook young people’s attention.
If approved by the court, the deal will stop an avalanche of litigation by states against Meta, although the company still faces lawsuits from individuals and school districts throughout the U.S. For the states, the settlement delivers money for mental health programs for kids, including after-school or summer activities and digital literacy counselors.
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser on Wednesday called the deal a landmark consumer-protection settlement. Colorado will receive $615 million over nine years.
The Attorney General’s Office said the money will be used to protect and improve children’s mental health and safety.
“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 in a statement. “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.”
Weiser added: “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.”
In addition to the monetary settlement, Meta agreed to adopt a series of safety measures on Instagram and Facebook, including the following:
- Daily time limits requiring a combined two-hour cap for children on both platforms, with mandatory “Productive Pauses” after 15 minutes of continuous use and again at 60 and 90 minutes. The limits will remain in place for five years.
- Nighttime access blocks restricting use from midnight to 6 a.m.
- School‑time restrictions that eliminate push notifications on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
- Stronger age‑assurance tools to more effectively verify users’ ages.
- Age-appropriate content controls with enhanced protections against bullying, eating‑disorder content and material related to suicide or self-harm.
- Improved parental controls.
- Limits on social-comparison features, including beauty filters and visible “like” counts.
- Regular assessments of the reforms by an independent auditor and the participating states.
In a statement, Gov. Jared Polis said he appreciates all the states that pushed major tech companies to stop practices that harm kids’ mental health. He said the funding will meaningfully support youth mental‑health efforts.
But he warned that the settlement doesn’t replace parental oversight.
Polis urged parents to take whatever steps make sense for their families to ensure social media is used in healthy, constructive ways or whether their children should use it at all.
The Colorado Attorney General’s Office said the settlement is a significant step but noted that broader problems extend beyond Meta’s platforms. Officials said they hope other companies, including TikTok and Snapchat, will adopt similar protections.
In a blog post, Meta said it is “building on our longstanding efforts to empower parents and support teens.”
“Ensuring teens have a safe and productive experience on our platforms is an absolute imperative for Meta,” the company said. “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.”
The company urged competitors TikTok and YouTube to adopt similar safety measures.
The agreement cuts short an ongoing court case involving California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey, which were among 29 states that sued Meta in 2023. The federal trial kicked off last week in Oakland, California, where Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had been among the witnesses expected to take the stand.
The lawsuit accused Meta of contributing to the youth mental health crisis by deliberately designing features that addict children to its platforms and hiding them from the public. The case also argued that Meta violated federal laws by routinely collecting data on children under 13 without their parents’ consent.
The cases in other states had been expected to go to trial later, but are now resolved. The settlement covers 48 states, as well as Washington, D.C., and some U.S. territories. The only two states to be excluded are New Mexico, which went to trial in its case against Meta and won earlier this year, and Florida, where the attorney general said the settlement was not tough enough on Meta.
In the last several years, Colorado legislators have pushed to regulate social media platforms, raising worries about the negative impact on youth mental and physical health, even as others argued that policies should be carefully crafted to ensure they balance protection and innovation.
Some have campaigned for age restrictions, pointing to studies saying social media can have negative impacts on youth mental and physical health. In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General issued an advisory warning that excessive social media use can increase rates of depression, anxiety and eating disorders in youth and teenagers.
Critics have countered that such restrictions offer a false sense of security and they are easily bypassed, while infringing on free speech and limiting minors’ ability to access information. They argued that parental guidance is ultimately more effective.
Several bills — both successful and unsuccessful — aimed at reducing social media’s negative impacts on youth have made their way through the Colorado state Capitol in recent years, including measures that would have required age verification for pornography websites and for social media platforms to publish their policies related to the sale or advertisement of illicit substances, firearms and sex trafficking.
