Meta agrees to major changes to Instagram and Facebook after teen addiction lawsuit

For years Meta has offered teen safety tools on Instagram and Facebook as optional features, often with low adoption. On Wednesday the company agreed to make those protections the default, settling a landmark lawsuit brought by dozens of U.S. states that accused it of designing platforms to hook children and harm their mental health.

Under the agreement, Meta will pay at least $12.1 billion over the next decade, with an additional $5 billion possible if competitors such as TikTok and YouTube adopt similar safeguards and make related payments, according to NME. The Guardian reported that Meta also agreed to pay $1 billion to Texas, which was not part of the suit, bringing the potential total to roughly $18 billion. Meta denied wrongdoing and the settlement includes no admission of liability.

The required changes for users under 18 are extensive. Teen accounts will face a two-hour daily limit across Facebook and Instagram, with pauses after 15 minutes of continuous use and reminders at 60 and 90 minutes, NME reported. Both apps will be blocked between midnight and 6 a.m. unless a parent intervenes, notifications will be silenced from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., and notifications will also be blocked from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on school days.

Many safety features that were previously opt-in will now be switched on by default for teen accounts, according to The Guardian. Teens will see a non-personalized, chronological feed rather than an algorithmic one, like counts will be hidden, and filters simulating extreme cosmetic procedures will be unavailable. Parents designated as supervising adults can monitor time spent, see usernames of social connections and accounts messaging their child, and receive alerts if a teen searches for keywords related to suicide, self-harm or eating disorders.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a lead lawyer in the case, called the settlement transformative. "Meta has agreed to make massive transformations that will reduce the risk of harm from its platforms — and will do it within months," Bonta said in a statement reported by NME.

Meta says the framework will only work if other platforms join. "Because teens move fluidly across dozens of apps, we need an industry-wide solution," chief legal officer CJ Mahoney said, according to The Guardian. The company has called on TikTok and YouTube to adopt similar measures.

Not everyone is satisfied. Arturo Béjar, a former Facebook safety engineer and key witness in the trial, told The Guardian that the settlement does not go far enough. "The limitations that are in the agreement are the equivalent of saying: 'Well you can smoke as many cigarettes as you can in two hours a day,'" Béjar said. "It doesn't make the cigarettes any safer."

The agreement is subject to court approval. It marks the first time Meta has been forced to change key features of the everyday user experience in the United States, according to The Guardian.