Meta settled its landmark child safety case for a maximum of $17 billion on Wednesday. The proposed settlement will pay the states involved in this case over the course of 10 years, and California alone is expected to receive between $1.5 billion and $2.1 billion if the settlement is approved by the courts.
As part of the settlement, the court required Meta to introduce rules for teenage users, including a default daily time limits, blocks on nighttime use that can only be lifted by a parent, enhanced parental supervision tools, age assurance measures to detect users under the age of 18 and children under the age of 13 and the appointment of an independent auditor who will oversee compliance. The settlement was reached across a bipartisan group of 52 attorneys general across U.S. states, territories and the District of Columbia.
In agreeing to settle, Meta denied wrongdoing. The California trial started last Tuesday.
“Today, we have secured a settlement with Meta that will make social media less dangerous for our kids and make a world of a difference for children and their families,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta. “Meta has agreed to make massive transformations that will reduce the risk of harm from its platforms — and will do it within months. We are talking about time limits, stopping notifications during school, a block on the app during critical overnight hours, bans on plastic surgery filters and so much more. Alongside a bipartisan coalition of my colleagues, I am proud to deliver this settlement that addresses the concerns at the core of our lawsuit and institutes real change, real transparency, and real enforceable protections for children on Facebook and Instagram — right now, no more waiting.”
Meta announced the settlement in a blog post titled “An Open Letter to TikTok and YouTube to Join Us in Supporting Teens.”
“We want to ensure teens benefit from this new industry standard, but we cannot do it alone. These protections will only be truly effective if we work with our peers — TikTok and YouTube — to put the same measures in place,” the statement reads. “All platforms should empower parents and support teens in these ways because we know that when teens are restricted on one app, they simply move to another. For meaningful progress to happen, we urge our peers to join us.”
Whether they want to or not, Meta’s competitors are having to address this growing global wave of public and legal unrest over child safety features on social media platforms. Last Friday, the Department of Justice announced a $400 million settlement with TikTok related to Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) concerns. And last year, YouTube’s owner Google agreed to a $30 million settlement over a child safety and privacy lawsuit.
Lawsuits related to child safety have become more common across the world over the past two years. Whereas TikTok and Snap have largely opted to settle their cases out of court, the Meta lawsuit is one of the only times a major tech company has brought one of these cases to trial. Earlier this year, Meta and YouTube were found to be negligent in a social media addiction case related to young users, a trial that required Meta to pay $4.2 million in combined compensatory and punitive damages and YouTube to pay $1.8 million.
The case, which was brought to the courts by 29 state attorneys general, could have cost Meta as much as $1.4 trillion. It was filed by state attorneys general in California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey who claimed that Meta developed “harmful and psychologically manipulative” features on its platforms that were designed to keep children scrolling and that the company violated the privacy of underage users. The state attorneys general also claimed that Meta published “profoundly misleading reports,” showing low rates of negative experiences on Instagram and Facebook. For its part, Meta has denied the child safety allegations.
