Settlement with the social media titan was reached amidst a civil trial regarding Meta’s alleged failures to protect its young users
HARRISBURG — Attorney General Dave Sunday announced that Pennsylvania, as part of a multistate coalition, has reached a settlement with Meta that assures the social media company will implement sweeping changes to existing age assurance framework, limit children’s time on their platforms, and cut kids’ access to harmful content.
The settlement, which involves up to $17.1 billion in national remediation payments, is the largest-ever settlement involving a big tech company. The total is contingent on other major social media companies agreeing to the same sweeping changes.
Pennsylvania is expected to receive $516 million over a period of years — and up to $729 million.
The multistate group reached the settlement in the midst of a civil trial happening in California regarding Meta’s alleged failures to protect young users.
“The days of Meta ignoring the damage its platforms cause kids are over — this is a landmark settlement that brings transformative changes to these hugely-popular social media spaces,” Attorney General Sunday said. “These settlement terms will implement effective age restrictions, put a stop to endless scrolling, and limit body-altering filters that skew students’ feelings of self-worth.
“We commend Meta for finally choosing this path of protecting kids, but our battle does not end here; we remain engaged with other social media and big tech companies to make changes, and we will not stand down.”
The settlement is HERE. The settlement terms are subjected to approval by the Court.
The settlement requires Meta to implement a series of safety features on Instagram and Facebook, including:
- Hard cap daily time limits and “Productive Pauses” for children: for its two platforms, Instagram and Facebook, a combined two-hour daily time limit with mandatory pauses after 15 minutes of continuous use and again at 60 and 90 minutes to interrupt endless scrolling. These limits remain in effect for five years. If Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube adopt comparable terms, the daily limit on each platform will drop to 60 minutes for 10 years.
- “Nighttime blocks” restricting children’s access from 12:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m.
- Limited school-time access for children, eliminating push notifications on weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. during the school year.
- Robust age assurance measures to more effectively verify the age of young users.
- Safer, age-appropriate content controls, including stronger safeguards against bullying, content promoting eating disorders, and content related to suicide and self-harm.
- Stronger, more user-friendly parental controls.
- Limits on social comparison features, including beauty filters and visible “like” counts, which have been linked to poor mental health outcomes in kids and teens.
- Both the implementation and efficacy of the features will be regularly assessed by an independent auditor and the settling states.
Beginning in 2021, nearly every attorney general in the country cooperated to investigate the social media industry for designing and promoting platforms to children and teens despite known harms. After a bipartisan, nationwide investigation found that Meta designed Instagram’s features to addict children while internally documenting the resulting mental health harms and failing to warn parents, attorneys general sued Meta individually or as part of a consolidated federal lawsuit. This settlement resolves those cases and claims by the other settling states and territories. The settlement also resolves the states’ claims against Meta for its sharing of nonpublic information about Facebook users with third parties, like Cambridge Analytica, leading up to the 2016 election.
The attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Northern Mariana Islands, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming joined the settlement.
A settlement agreement shall not be considered an admission of a violation of the law.
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