Meta has agreed to pay more than $18 billion to stop what could have been an increasingly damaging trial over social media harms, while the company has also agreed to implement new restrictions on teen social media use, in order to settle the case brought by 29 U.S. attorneys general, the trial for which began in California last week.
At the same time, Meta has tried to deflect negative focus by putting the spotlight onto TikTok and YouTube instead, by calling on both platforms to follow its lead in implementing new measures to limit teen harm.
The landmark case alleged that Meta intentionally designed addictive systems, despite knowing that those systems posed risks. And while the problems here applied to all users, a key focus of the trial was teenagers and how Instagram and Facebook impacted them.
Meta could have faced more than $1 trillion in combined damage claims from users alleged harm from its apps, had it been found liable. Instead, the company made the surprise move to settle a trial that had been expected to run for weeks, and which could have revealed more damaging insights about the company’s operations.
As per Meta: “Ensuring teens have a safe and productive experience on our platforms is an absolute imperative for Meta. 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.”
Under the agreement, Meta will implement a range of changes to ensure better protections for users under age 18, including:
- A daily default two-hour usage time limit that can only be turned off by parents. The time limit will be cumulative across all of an under-18 user’s accounts on Facebook and Instagram.
- A default block on Meta apps between midnight and 6 a.m. for all teen users.
- Notifications will be automatically muted by default during school hours (8 a.m. to 3 p.m.) for teens.
- Teens will be prompted to take a break every 15 minutes of continuous screen time on Facebook and Instagram and will also receive prompts when their total daily usage hits 60 minutes and 90 minutes.
- Teen users will be able to choose a non-algorithmic feed as their default.
- Teens will be able to turn off autoplay, so that content no longer automatically plays.
- Teens won’t see the number of likes and reactions on posts by default.
In addition, Meta plans to disable cosmetic surgery and extreme makeup filters for teens and make a bigger push on its parental supervision tools, to ensure that parents are aware of their options.
The company also committed to investing in better technology to proactively catch accounts that may belong to children under age 13.
“We’re also strengthening the technology we use to identify accounts that may be between the ages of 13 and 17, so we can ensure those accounts are placed in experiences designed for teens, even if they give us an adult birthday,” Meta said. “However, to ensure teens are consistently protected across the many apps they use, app stores must provide developers with verified age information.” In adding this, Meta reiterated its call for app stores to take more action in implementing teen restrictions.
Meta said the majority of these settings would remain in place for 10 years under the settlement agreement, with the time limit parameters initially in place for at least five years.
Though that could change if TikTok and YouTube agree to the same parameters.
A contingency within Meta’s agreement is that TikTok and YouTube must also align with these rules. Meta said that it would extend its commitments to daily time limits to 10 years if TikTok and YouTube also agree to do that.
“While this is an important step, the fact is that teens move fluidly between dozens of apps a day,” Meta said. “All platforms should empower parents and support teens by putting the same measures in place, because we know that when teens are restricted on one app, they simply move to another.”
The company also said it would establish an independent social media research foundation and commit to independent auditor assessments of its compliance to ensure that it is meeting its commitments.
Meta said its financial settlement should be used to fund youth online safety initiatives
The $18 billion payment will be distributed in annual installments over a 10-year period, with participating states set to receive approximately 70% of the allocated payment over the course of the decade.
The remaining 30%, which equates to around $5.3 billion, will be released only if YouTube and TikTok also commit to the same daily teen usage restrictions, and each agrees to pay an amount matching that 30% figure.
This range of changes to Meta’s apps largely align with the parameters set forth by a New Mexico judge in another recent court case about Meta’s teen protection efforts.
In that case, which was finalized earlier this month, the court ruled that Meta would need to halt all push notifications for users under age 18 from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. daily, and from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. during the school year. Meta was also required to hide like counts by default for users under age 18, as well as implement a mandatory teen usage cap of no more than 90 hours per month across Facebook and Instagram.
The two-hour usage cap outlined in this week’s case is more restrictive than the 90-hour monthly limit imposed in the New Mexico ruling. But the parameters set out in the earlier case effectively established the framework for this latest one.
So why did Meta agree to settle and align with these stringent usage restrictions?
The main impetus for Meta’s decision was likely to stem the tide of bad PR resulting from these lawsuits, as well as to limit the potential public exposure of additional damaging internal documents. This week’s trial already revealed some of Meta’s inner decision-making process, which reflected poorly on its view of user safety.
Meta is in the midst of a bigger push to bring personal superintelligence to everybody. Conceptually at least, that could see all Meta users given access to artificial intelligence tools designed to guide life decisions, be they health-related, financial or anything else.
But in order to enact this, Meta needs everyone to trust it with even more personal data. Public trust in Meta is already low, and the company probably saw this trial as another potential blow to its brand reputation, which could derail its AI superintelligence plan.
As such, the $18 billion price tag likely outweighs the longer-term benefits of a broader adoption of AI tools.
This also relates to the usage aspect. Usage of Facebook has been in decline for some time, and growing teen usage on Facebook and Instagram has long been a challenge for the business.
As such, restricting teen usage likely has much less of an impact for Meta than it would have for, say, TikTok. As such, deflecting the harm, and putting the spotlight on TikTok and YouTube instead, could be far more damaging for those platforms.
It’s also worth noting this element of Meta’s announcement: “Our direct messaging features are excluded from Night Mode, Time Limit, and School Mode restrictions, to allow teens to stay connected with friends and family.”
Messaging has become the primary means for users to connect, with fewer people posting to social apps, and opting instead to share their thoughts in private DM groups instead. Meta owns the two biggest messaging platforms, Messenger and WhatsApp, and the company has no doubt done the math and worked out that restricting teens from the main social feeds will push them towards messaging instead, where Meta still wins.
Another consideration here is the rising push for teen social media restrictions around the world, which Meta was going to have to comply with either way. With this in mind, Meta has likely been developing its approach for some time in preparation for these bans.
So, is this a good outcome?
Well, it does mean Meta is moving to implement more teen protections, which will only be a good thing in the broader scheme of social media impacts. But the biggest focus for Meta is its AI push, and the company probably sees its social platforms as declining assets either way. As such, Facebook and Instagram could be somewhat expendable, at least in terms of teen usage.
Meta will still have billions of people engaging with its apps and its daily usage figures will remain the same (it doesn’t report time spent per user). While its ad exposure for teen users may reduce, the company can be confident it will make that up via its messaging apps, and eventually with its AI tools, too.
