The settlement, announced Wednesday, August 26, ends a landmark federal trial in California involving claims from 47 states that Meta’s platforms contributed to harm among teenagers and violated child privacy laws by deliberately engineering its platforms to hook young users, misled the public about the risks and unlawfully collected data from children under 13.
Facebook and Instagram owner Meta agreed to block teens from using its apps at night and to impose a default two-hour cap on their cumulative daily use across the company’s family of apps in addition to restrictions on push notifications during school hours, stronger age-verification systems and enhanced parental controls. Meta will also restrict certain social-comparison features, including the visibility of “like” counts for younger users.
The case was filed in 2023 after a coalition of states accused Meta of intentionally developing features designed to keep young users engaged for longer periods while allegedly concealing information about the risks posed to children.
Meta’s $17.1 billion settlement is the largest Big Tech settlement in US history and the largest state consumer-protection settlement since the tobacco settlements of the 1990s.
