Facebook-parent Meta reaches nearly $18 billion settlement over social media’s mental health impact on children
Facebook-parent company Meta has agreed to a multi-billion-dollar legal settlement worth nearly $18 billion, resolving claims brought by dozens of US states alleging that the tech firm engineered Facebook and Instagram to addict minors, misled the public regarding user safety and illegally harvested private data from underage users. The massive agreement concludes claims filed by a bipartisan group of 52 attorneys general across US states, territories and the District of Columbia, and brings an end to an Oakland, California federal trial that represented a critical legal test over the role tech platforms play in harming youth well-being. While agreeing to the financial terms and major platform overhauls, Meta maintained that it committed no wrongdoing.“The agreement includes a payment of approximately $18 billion, which can be used to fund youth online safety initiatives, among other state priorities. The payment will be distributed in annual installments over a 10-year period. Participating states will receive approximately 70% (approximately $12.7 billion) of the allocated payment over the decade. The remaining 30% (approximately $5.3 billion) will be released only after two specific conditions are met,” the company said in a blog.Meta wants “YouTube and TikTok [to] implement a one-hour Daily Limit, Night Mode, and age assurance measures, and that “YouTube and TikTok each pay an amount matching the 30% figure, with half of the remaining funds tied to YouTube’s payment and half tied to TikTok’s.”
Mandatory platform overhauls for underage users
As part of the nationwide resolution, Meta has agreed to implement significant behavioural and privacy safeguards across its apps. These include time and access restrictions wherein the company will establish daily screen-time caps and limit late-night app activity for children using Facebook and Instagram. Additionally, Meta will roll out stronger screening mechanisms to prevent younger users from viewing age-restricted materials.The settlement package also resolves long-standing privacy lawsuits brought by Illinois, California, New Mexico, and Washington DC, tied to the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, in which the consulting group harvested personal records from millions of Facebook accounts, as per news report by news agency Reuters. Those states will receive $459.3 million to resolve those lawsuits.
What Meta said on the settlement
On the agreement, Meta’s chief legal officer C.J. Mahoney, said that the framework that has been negotiated “will empower parents to easily manage how their children access our platforms.”“Our new Time Limit commitments, Night Mode features and usage limits during school hours set the right path forward for our whole industry, but this framework will only work if all our peers join us. Because teens move fluidly across dozens of apps, we need an industry-wide solution. We therefore call on our industry peers, TikTok and YouTube, to implement this new framework, right away. As a parent, I’m proud of both the work Meta has done to protect kids historically, and of this new groundbreaking agreement. But its success depends on all other social media platforms following Meta’s lead,” he added.
