social media

Meta agreed to pay $17.1 billion today to settle with 52 attorneys general who claim the company intentionally addicts children to social media.

The landmark agreement requires the social media company make gargantuan changes to Facebook and Instagram, including limiting some of the apps’ most lucrative features.

Attorneys filed the settlement agreement in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Wednesday morning. If Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers approves it, as expected, it will end the federal social media addiction trial which began just last week.

Meta’s $17.1 billion payment is broken into several smaller sums. The company will pay as much as $16.68 billion to 47 states, the District of Columbia and three U.S. territories in equal amounts over the next 10 years. The payment will resolve the states’ allegations Meta designed Facebook and Instagram to be addictive.

The company will pay an additional $0.49 billion to 38 states and two U.S. territories to resolve allegations it improperly sold Facebook users’ private data to third parties.

Meta also made a separate, more than $1 billion settlement with Texas on Wednesday. The agreement evidently preempts a lawsuit from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who began investigating Meta under the state’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act in November 2021. Paxton has already won several large settlements from Meta.

Meta’s settlement money will go, in large part, toward preventing and healing harm caused by social media.

The multi-state settlement requires Meta make sweeping changes to its platforms, many of which are echoed in Texas’ agreement.

Meta must accurately estimate the ages of the vast majority of its users to comply with the settlement. Any user under 13 years old must immediately be removed. Users under 18 will automatically receive new default protections, like:

• Daily two-hour time limits on Meta apps.
• Blocks on Meta apps between midnight and 6:00 a.m.
• Blocks on push notifications during the school day, from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
• Hiding likes and reactions on posts.
• Blocks on filters which edit users’ faces to show heavy makeup or plastic surgery lines.

Parents can lift or adjust many of these limits using Meta’s parental controls, which the company must strengthen and make more user-friendly.

But, for the first time, parents and teens can also disable some of the apps’ most addictive features. Meta must allow users to turn off:

• Autoplay, which queues videos to play automatically.
• Content-recommendation algorithms, which curate content based on the user’s interests, likes and dislikes.

The settlement also requires Meta to start reminding minors how long they’ve been on Facebook and Instagram. After every 15 minutes of continuous use, the apps will interrupt the teen with a reminder to use social media responsibly.

Similar alerts will pop up when a minor uses Meta apps for an hour and an hour and a half in one day.

In a press release announcing the agreement, Meta also committed to communicate more frequently with parents, writing it would alert parents when their child:

• Links to a second account.
• Interacts with a suspicious account.
• Tries to disable or get around parental controls.

The changes outlined in the settlement are undeniably groundbreaking and encouraging. But parents shouldn’t view the agreement as a sign social media is safe.

Some of Meta’s participation, and multi-state payout, hinges on whether other social media companies, like Snap, TikTok and YouTube, will adopt the same safety standards.

“We want to ensure teens benefit from this new industry standard, but we cannot do it alone,” Meta’s press release reads. “These protections will only be truly effective if we work with our peers, TikTok and YouTube, to put the same measures in place.”

Meta’s point is well-taken — how effective will restrictions on Facebook and Instagram be if teens can just spend more time on TikTok?

But the company also made industry participation part of its agreement with the states. The first $12.7 billion of the company’s $17.1 billion settlement is guaranteed to the states. It only has pay the remaining $5.3 billion if YouTube and TikTok:

• Implement a one-hour daily time limit.
• Limit access to their apps from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.
• Spend more time and resources estimating users’ ages.
• Each pay $5.3 billion.

If other social media companies agree to participate, Meta agrees to abide by the same longer nighttime restrictions and shorter daily usage limit.

If Snap, YouTube and TikTok don’t join in, however, Meta only has to abide by its two-hour daily time limit and “responsible usage” alerts for five years — half the length of the rest of the settlement.

Parents should also know that Meta’s daily time limit, nighttime restrictions and school hour restrictions don’t apply to direct messages. So, if your child is using Instagram and Facebook’s messaging features, they will still be able to effectively text with no limits.

The direct messaging loophole illustrates why parents must stay engaged. Meta’s capitulation today signals a watershed moment, a moment when Big Tech bent to the will of the people.

But Meta is still Meta. It does not have a record of keeping children safe. These changes, while hopeful, do not make social media a safe place for children.

Additional Articles and Resources

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Parenting Tips for Guiding Your Kids in the Digital Age

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New Mexico Accuses Meta of Egregious Harm to Children in Court Case

Social Media Addiction Suits got to Trial — Here’s What You Need to Know

Instagram’s Sextortion Safety Measures — Too Little, Too Late?

Key Takeaways From Zuckerberg’s Tell-All

Zuckerberg Implicated in Meta’s Failures to Protect Children

The first of the federal social media addiction trials began in Oakland, California this week, with four state attorneys general accusing Meta of deliberately addicting children to social media.

The attorneys general of California, Kentucky, Colorado and New Jersey alleged Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram:

• “Created a business model focused on maximizing young users’ time on its platforms.”
• “Employs harmful and psychologically manipulative platform features while misleading the public about the safety of those features.”
• “Publishes reports purporting to show misleadingly low rates of user harms.”
• “Refuses to address those harms while continuing to conceal and downplay its platforms’ adverse effects.”

This alleged bad behavior, the states claim, violates their respective consumer protection laws and the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which prohibits companies from collecting children’s online data without parents’ permission.

Oral arguments for the case began in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Tuesday.

“Hook the users; hold them for as long as they can; harvest their data; hide the truth from the public when making public statements,” Megan O’Neill, a deputy attorney general for the California Department of Justice, described the social media company’s alleged tactics.

“Meta’s business model worked especially well for kids,” she hammered home.

If Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers rules in the states’ favor, Meta could have to pay as much as $200 billion in damages — nearly a fifth of the company’s current value.

The states’ case against Meta, which California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed in October 2023, began in 2021 as a nationwide investigation into the effect of Facebook and Instagram on minors.

“Our bipartisan investigation has arrived at a solemn conclusion,” Bonta wrote in a press release announcing the suit. “Meta has been harming our children and teens, cultivating addiction to boost corporate profits.”

More than 33 states joined the original filing, which remains heavily redacted. Judge Gonzalez Rogers selected evidence from California, Colorado, New Jersey and Kentucky to appear in the trial.

The case is the first in a series of federal bellwether cases, which are used to test novel legal theories. The question is whether a federal court can hold Meta liable for the damaging, addictive design of its social media platforms.

Until recently, no court at any level had ruled on this question. This year, however, juries in California and New Mexico state courts penalized Meta and YouTube for creating products which harmed minors.

A Los Angeles jury in March found Meta and YouTube’s addictive social media platforms caused a young woman to experience sextortion, depression, anxiety and body image issues.

A New Mexico jury ordered Meta to pay $375 million for endangering children on Facebook and Instagram. This month, Judge Bryan Biedscheid ordered the company pay another $567 million into an abatement fund for New Mexicans harmed by the platforms.

The judge further ordered Meta adopt new safety features for New Mexico minors, including:

• Limiting them to 90 hours on the platforms or less per month.
• Shutting off push-notifications overnight and during school hours.
• Requiring parental consent before minors can see how many likes their posts receive.
• Blurring suspected nude images.
• Preventing Meta chatbots from conducting sexual interactions with minors.

Meta has already suffered some early setbacks in its battle against California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey. The social media giant tried to get the case thrown out under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which grants online content forums like Facebook and Instagram legal immunity for content posted to their platform.

But the once bulletproof legal strategy failed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit denied the company’s request earlier this month.

Meta also tried to prevent its former safety officer turned whistleblower, Arturo Béjar, from testifying against it. Judge Gonzalez Rogers likewise denied that request, and Béjar took the stand on Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

Béjar worked two stints for Meta totaling eight years. He returned to the company in 2019 after his own daughter received unwanted, sexually explicit photos over Instagram.

He left the company in 2021 after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri and other top executives repeatedly ignored his suggestions to improve safety for young people.

“I think they [the executives] really care about making people think that they care, but I think in practice they don’t care,” Béjar testified in February in New Mexico’s state trial against Meta.

“Caring is the moment you become aware of something, you engage with it, you understand it, you work on it, you do things that make it better.”

In this week’s testimony, Béjar revealed he met with Zuckerberg to inform him of problems with Facebook and Instagram an estimated 100 times. At these meetings, Béjar said he told the CEO the platforms promoted violent and graphic content and content from sexual predators to children.

Yet Zuckerberg and his higher-ups never meaningfully addressed these problems, he claimed. Sometimes, they never responded to his emails.

Béjar also bolstered pieces of the states’ case alleging Meta misled the public and made money off children’s addiction.

“I felt that he created a false and misleading impression of Facebook’s commitment to young people,” Béjar admitted.

In 2021, Béjar conducted his own survey of more than 237,000 Instagram users between 13 and 15 years old. One in three reported witnessing cyberbullying. One in 10 said they, themselves, experienced bullying online. One in five reported seeing explicit images.

Still, Béjar said the company never took meaningful steps to correct the problems. Meanwhile, habit-forming features like infinite scroll made it buckets of cash.

“On scroll, the more views you have, the more ads you sell, the more revenue you make,” he explained.

The jury and judge must decide whether the states’ evidence proves Meta designed its products to addict children. But Meta does not have to be legally guilty to be dangerous for children.

A growing mountain of evidence shows social media is, at best, detrimental to children’s mental health. At worst, it makes them easy targets for all kinds of internet predators.

Social media is not a safe place for children. Parents should seriously consider keeping their children off it.

To read more of the Daily Citizen’s reporting on the effects of social media on children, read the articles linked below.

Additional Articles and Resources

New Mexico Accuses Meta of Egregious Harm to Children in Court Case

Social Media Addiction Suits got to Trial — Here’s What You Need to Know

Instagram’s Sextortion Safety Measures — Too Little, Too Late?

Key Takeaways From Zuckerberg’s Tell-All

Zuckerberg Implicated in Meta’s Failures to Protect Children

Instagram Content Restrictions Don’t Work, Tests Show

Surgeon General Recommends Warning on Social Media Platforms

Horrifying Instagram Investigation Indicts Modern Parenting

France’s high court blocked a bill last Friday which would have banned children under 15 years old from accessing social media.

The bill, which French legislators passed in a 279-81 vote on July 21, would have required platforms like Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat to prevent children under 15 from creating new accounts on September 1. Social media platforms would have had to exclude all users under 15 by January 2027.

The country’s Constitutional Council struck down the proposed legislation on August 10, finding it violated citizens’ right to freedom of expression and failed to include adequate privacy protections.

Though the court reportedly acknowledged the government’s legitimate interest in protecting children, it found the bill “infringes freedom of expression and communication in a manner that is not appropriate, necessary or proportionate [to that interest].”

Following the Council’s order, French President Emmanuel Macron ordered Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu to redraft the proposed ban.  

“The objective pursued since 2017 by the head of the state on the protection of minors online remains unchanged: to protect the best interests and health of our children while the harmful effects of social networks on them are scientifically documented,” Macron’s office wrote in a statement Friday.

The French Constitutional Council’s ruling leaves Australia the lone country in the world with an age-based social media ban. It began enforcing a law keeping children under 16 off social media in December 2025.

Dozens of other countries are reportedly considering such bans, including:

• Austria
• Denmark
• Germany
• Greece
• Norway
• Poland
• Slovenia
• Spain
• Portugal
• Canada
• Thailand
• Indonesia
• Malaysia
• United Kingdom

The European Union may also implement a policy preventing kids under 13 from accessing social media, AI chatbots and some video games.

Most social media platforms already prohibit users under 13 in their usage agreements.

Though France’s legal woes indicate age-based legal bans may be difficult to pass, the reality remains that social media harms children.

Earlier this month, a New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay $567 million into a fund to amend harms caused by Facebook and Instagram. The company must pay the massive sum in addition to $375 million a New Mexico jury ordered them to pay in March for endangering children.

Judge Bryan Biedscheid also ordered Meta to add several safety features for users under 18, including:

• Limiting minors to 90 hours on the platforms or less per month.
• Shutting off push-notifications overnight and during school hours.
• Requiring parental consent before minors can see how many likes their posts receive.
• Blurring suspected nude images.
• Preventing Meta chatbots from conducting sexual interactions with minors.

The changes will prevent Meta’s apps from causing further harm to minors in New Mexico, like they have to other teens around America and the world. Earlier this year, for instance, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and YouTube’s addictive social media platforms caused a young woman to experience sextortion, depression, anxiety and body image issues.

There’s no question: Governments and social media companies must take steps to protect children from harm. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen puts it in perspective:

In Europe, whoever develops a product is responsible for its safety. Car manufacturers must make their vehicles safe. We do not expect children to design their own seatbelts. We do not expect parents to fit airbags at home.

But parents bear ultimate responsibility for their children’s safety — and they should avoid products they know to be dangerous. Mounting evidence suggests social media is defective by design, so parents should seriously consider keeping their children away.

For more information on keeping your kids safe online, read the articles below.

Additional Articles and Resources

Counseling Consultation & Referrals

Parenting Tips for Guiding Your Kids in the Digital Age

New AI Tool Helps Parents Keep Kids Safe Online

Australia Bans Kids Under 16 Years Old From Social Media

New Mexico Judge Orders Meta to Pay Additional $567 Million Fine

More Than Twenty States Limit Smartphone Use in Schools

Texas Can Enforce App Store Accountability Act — For Now

Lawsuit Against Snapchat Latest in Social Media Accountability Push

Juries in California, New Mexico Rule Against Meta

New Mexico Accuses Meta of Egregious Harm to Children in Court Case

Social Psychologist Finds Smartphones and Social Media Harm Kids in These Four Ways

Four Ways to Protect Your Kids from Bad Tech, From Social Psychologist Jonathan Haidt

Survey Finds Teens Use Social Media More Than Four Hours Per Day — Here’s What Parents Can Do

‘The Tech Exit’ Helps Families Ditch Addictive Tech — For Good

Parent-Run Groups Help Stop Childhood Smartphone Use