Meta agreed to significant changes to its Instagram and Facebook apps in a settlement that ended a landmark lawsuit on Wednesday. Dozens of US states had accused the tech giant of addicting and harming children with dangerous products. The agreement curtails a major trial in California and will require the social media company to pay up to $17bn.
Meta agreed to establish safeguards for teenage users, including daily usage limits and blocks on nighttime use nationwide in the US. This is the first time in the US that Meta has been forced to change key features of the experience of everyday users. The jury trial, which took place in federal court in Oakland, California, began with opening statements just last week.
California and 28 other US states sued the $1.36tn (£1tn) company over allegations that Meta deliberately designed addictive products that hooked young people, leading to mental health issues, including anxiety, depression and suicide. The states additionally claimed the social media company regularly collected data on children under the age of 13 without parental permission in violation of federal and state laws. As part of the settlement, the company denies wrongdoing.
The $17bn settlement will be divided between the states over a period of 10 years, subject to court approval. For example, California would receive between $1.5bn and $2.1bn and Colorado will get about $615m. On Wednesday, the company’s chief legal officer, CJ Mahoney, said the settlement reached with the states would only work if all social media companies changed their platform designs.
We therefore call on our industry peers, TikTok, Snap, and YouTube, to implement this new framework, right away,” Mahoney said in a statement. But its success depends on all other social media platforms following Meta’s lead.” Meta, YouTube, TikTok and Snap face thousands more similar US lawsuits brought by families, individuals, school districts and other attorneys general. Meta and YouTube lost the first of those cases to go to trial in February, being ordered to pay $6m to the young woman who brought the suit. (TikTok and Snap settled before the case went to trial.) Two more lawsuits that were slated to go to trial this summer, one federal and one in California state court, also settled for undisclosed sums.
Meta lost a separate suit, brought by the attorney general of New Mexico, where it was ordered to pay nearly $1bn to the state of New Mexico for allowing child sexual exploitation on its platforms. The trial in Oakland was expected to last for several weeks with dozens of witnesses taking the stand. Instead, there were only four days of proceedings.
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