Meta has settled a multistate lawsuit alleging Facebook and Instagram were designed to be addictive to teens, agreeing to pay up to $18bn and adopt new safety defaults.
Meta has agreed to a settlement worth up to approximately $18 billion with a coalition of US state attorneys general over claims that Facebook and Instagram were deliberately designed to encourage compulsive use among children and teenagers, and that the company misled the public about the risks.
The exact number of participating attorneys general varies slightly across reporting, figures of 52, 51 and 48 have all been cited, though most reports describe the coalition as spanning roughly 48 states plus additional US territories; New Mexico and Florida did not join the settlement, having pursued separate action.
The settlement, still subject to judicial approval, resolves a lawsuit filed in 2023 by California Attorney General Rob Bonta and a bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general, following a two-year investigation. That investigation followed a series of 2021 Wall Street Journal reports, based on internal documents from whistleblower Frances Haugen, which found Meta was aware Instagram could harm teenagers’ mental health and body image, particularly among teen girls.
The lawsuit alleged Meta violated state consumer protection laws and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by illegally collecting data from children under 13.
Meta New Safety Measures
In a statement, Meta said the deal would bring stricter protections to Facebook and Instagram, including limits on teenagers’ screen time, blocked overnight access, muted notifications during school hours, and expanded parental controls. C.J. Mahoney, Meta’s chief legal officer, said the agreement would establish “a new set of rules governing teens’ use of social media.”
Under the settlement, teens will be blocked from Meta’s apps by default between midnight and 6am, and notifications will be muted from 8am to 3pm on school days; teens will only be able to turn off these limits with parental permission. Users will receive prompts every 15 minutes of continuous screen time, and again after 60 and 90 minutes of total daily use.
Meta also committed to an enhanced content-reporting mechanism for teens, pledging to respond to 90 percent of reports within six hours, and to do more to verify user age and remove under-13 accounts, with an independent auditor monitoring compliance. The company will also be barred by injunction from making further false or misleading statements about its safety features.
Some provisions could tighten further depending on competitors’ actions: Meta said it would reduce the daily time limit to one hour and expand the nighttime block to 10pm–7am if TikTok and YouTube adopt matching measures. “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,” Mahoney said.
The Money
Meta said the settlement includes a payment of approximately $18 billion, to be distributed in annual installments over 10 years. Participating states are expected to receive about 70 percent of that figure, roughly $12.7 billion, regardless of what competitors do. The remaining $5.3 billion is conditional: it will only be released if TikTok and YouTube meet specified conditions, including matching Meta’s spending and adopting similar safety measures for young users.
For context, the state attorneys general had reportedly sought as much as $200 billion in damages at trial, meaning the settlement, if Meta pays the maximum, represents less than 10 percent of that original demand. Meta earned more than $200 billion in revenue in 2025 and had acknowledged in its most recent earnings report that the litigation posed a risk of “material loss.”
The company said it expects to record approximately $10 billion in legal expenses in the third quarter of 2026 as a result of the agreement, a charge not included in the expense range it gave during its Q2 earnings call.
The settlement stops an ongoing trial that had involved the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey, among others, and follows two related losses for Meta earlier this year: a New Mexico case in which the company was ordered to pay nearly $1 billion in damages and create a separate abatement fund, and a case brought by a teen identified as K.G.M. that resulted in $6 million in joint damages against Meta and YouTube.
Reaction and What Comes Next
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the agreement “institutes real change, real transparency, real protections for children and teens across the country.” His office said a significant portion of California’s share of the payment is earmarked for the prevention or remediation of mental health harms linked to social media use among young Californians, though the state legislature and governor will ultimately decide how the funds are spent.
Meta did not admit wrongdoing as part of the settlement and has previously called the states’ claims “unsubstantiated.” “Ensuring teens have a safe and productive experience on our platforms is an absolute imperative for Meta,” the company said in a blog post.
“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.”
The agreement also establishes an independent social media research foundation to support research into teen wellbeing, with Meta sharing consented user data with the foundation and an independent auditor reviewing the company’s compliance annually for five years. Most of the settlement’s provisions are set to remain in place for 10 years.
The deal ends Meta’s exposure in this particular multistate case, but the company, along with other major social media platforms, still faces hundreds of separate lawsuits from individual families and school districts across the US alleging harm to children.
