OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Meta has agreed to pay $17 billion and add child-safety measures to its Facebook and Instagram platforms to end a landmark trial over teen social media addiction and settle claims filed by 47 states, state attorneys general announced Wednesday.
New York is among 29 states that sued the tech giant in 2023, but the deal cuts short the trial, which was expected to see CEO Mark Zuckerberg take the stand before a jury in federal court in California.
On her website, New York Attorney General Letitia James said the settlement money will help to support mental health services, education programs, and other efforts to reduce harm caused by unhealthy social media use among young people. She also said this is the largest settlement reached with a single company in the history of the New York Attorney General’s Office. Here’s her statement:
“Children in New York and nationwide are suffering while companies like Meta reap immense profits by intentionally addicting them to their social media platforms. We cannot allow social media companies to continue fueling the growing rates of low self-esteem, isolation, and depression among our youth. With significant new resources for our communities and comprehensive restrictions on Meta’s platforms for young people, we are taking a major step towards breaking the cycle of social media addiction. This groundbreaking plan sets a standard of reforms for all social media platforms, and I will continue to work to extend these protections across the industry.”
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The lawsuit accused Meta of contributing to the youth mental health crisis by deliberately designing features that addict children to its platforms and hiding them from the public. It also argued that Meta violated federal laws by routinely collecting data on children under 13 without their parents’ consent.
The trial kicked off last week in Oakland, California, with U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers overseeing the proceedings. Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, began his testimony late Tuesday and defended Meta’s record and progress on child safety and privacy.
The cases in other states had been expected to go to trial later. In addition, nine attorneys general filed lawsuits in their respective states.
Under the proposed settlement, Meta agreed to adopt a series of safety features, including a “hard cap” on daily time limits and pauses for children using Instagram and Facebook.
It will eliminate push notifications during weekday school hours and bring in “robust” age-assurance measures and “age-appropriate” content controls to prevent bullying and harmful material about eating disorders and self-harm.
There will be stronger and more user-friendly parental controls and limits on social comparison features such as “like” counts.
The federal lawsuit was the result of an investigation led by a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general from California, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee, and Vermont. It followed newspaper reports, first by The Wall Street Journal in 2021, that found that the company knew about the harm Instagram can cause teenagers — especially teen girls — when it comes to mental health and body image issues.
Meta has since added a host of safety features to Instagram, including separate accounts for teenagers with stronger protections around messaging and privacy, along with content restrictions.
But child safety experts, along with some former Meta employees, have long contended that the features are little more than window dressing.
Arturo Béjar, a former Meta engineering director, said during his testimony last week that Meta consistently prioritized profits over safety in designing its products, focusing on how often and for how long people used them, even if it was detrimental to their mental well-being.
“If you step away from the product, they are not going to make any money,” he said.
While the four states in the Oakland trial did not officially say how much they had been seeking, Meta said in a court filing that financial penalties in the case could amount to as much as $1.4 trillion — a figure legal experts said was unlikely, if not impossible.
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Chan reported from London. Associated Press Writer Sarah Rankin in Richmond, Virginia, contributed to this report.
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