Meta to Pay Up to $18 Billion and Add New Safety Rules for Teens on Facebook and Instagram
Meta has agreed to pay up to $18 billion and make major changes to how Facebook and Instagram work for users under 18. The settlement resolves a lawsuit from dozens of U.S. states that said the company designed its apps to be addictive to young people and collected children's personal data. The deal, reached after two years of investigation by California Attorney General Rob Bonta's office and a multistate coalition led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, still needs court approval. Meta denied wrongdoing as part of the agreement. Reuters
Under the terms, users under 18 will get a default two-hour daily time limit, which only a parent can increase. The apps will be blocked for young users between midnight and 6 AM by default, with parental adjustment permitted. Teens will get reminders every 15 minutes of continuous use, plus prompts at 60 and 90 minutes of total daily use. Notifications for under-18s will be blocked overnight and during school hours, except for direct messages and alerts about account security or safety. Engadget
Meta will also stop showing young users how many likes or reactions a post has received. The company will ban extreme makeup filters, building on an existing block on filters that simulate cosmetic surgery. Users under 18 will get access to a feed that simply shows posts from accounts they follow in the order they were posted, rather than one sorted by an algorithm that tries to maximize engagement. Periodic reminders to use this feed will appear, and parents can enable it by default. An improved reporting system for harmful content will be deployed, with Meta pledging to respond to 90 percent of teen-filed reports within six hours. Engadget
Meta agreed to do more to figure out whether an account is used by a person under 18 and to remove children under 13 from its platforms. An independent auditor will monitor these practices. The company will also face an injunction that bars it from making false, misleading, or deceptive statements about its safety features. Engadget
The $18 billion is split into two parts. Meta will pay 70 percent, roughly $12.7 billion, over 10 years to fund states' online safety programs for young people. The remaining 30 percent, about $5.3 billion, only has to be paid if YouTube and TikTok collectively match that amount and agree to a one-hour daily time limit for young users, a nighttime app block, and age-check measures on their own platforms. Engadget
Meta publicly called on TikTok and YouTube to join it. The company committed to reducing its own daily time limit to one hour and expanding the nighttime block to 10 PM–7 AM if rivals agree to do the same. Meta
The settlement follows a legal battle that began with the multistate complaint filed in October 2023 in the Northern District of California. The states alleged that Meta tracks and records the behavior of millions of young users and uses that data to refine features that keep them engaged. By July 2026, states were seeking $1.4 trillion in penalties at trial, based on state laws. Reuters The trial began in August 2026, and a mid-trial settlement was reportedly discussed before the agreement was finalized. Reuters
Other recent rulings in the youth-safety area include a New Mexico court ordering Meta to pay $567 million for a teen mental health fund and add youth-safety changes in August 2026. A separate jury verdict in March 2026 found Meta liable for $4.2 million and Google for $1.8 million in a social media addiction case. Reuters Reuters
The broader context here is that the second part of the payment is an unusual arrangement. Meta has positioned itself as a willing participant in a broader industry reform while placing a $5.3 billion bet that its competitors will not follow suit. If TikTok and YouTube decline, Meta pays less. If they accept, the industry-wide rules become normal, and Meta has already built the systems to comply. The settlement also includes design changes, such as removing like counts and offering a simple chronological feed, that echo provisions from California's SB 976, a bill introduced by Attorney General Bonta, Assemblymember Wicks, and Senator Skinner in January 2024 to give parents control over whether users under 18 receive a chronological feed. Engadget OAG California
The injunction against misleading safety claims is worth flagging on its own. It moves oversight beyond how the products are designed and into how Meta talks about them publicly, creating a lasting legal constraint on the company's marketing and communications. Combined with the independent auditor for age checks, the settlement relies on outside verification rather than Meta's own self-reporting.
In my view, if the court approves the deal and the design changes hold, this creates a tested template for limiting how apps work for minors at a very large scale. The two-hour default, the nighttime block, and the 15-minute reminders are not vague policy ideas; they are specific product features with compliance deadlines. If TikTok and YouTube participate, the contingent terms could establish a baseline for teen safety across the industry that individual state laws have not been able to achieve.
