Meta waved a white flag on Wednesday in a long-running battle over claims it used deceptive tactics to get teens addicted to social media, reaching a roughly $18 billion settlement agreement and pledging to make sweeping changes to Facebook and Instagram to address teen safety.
The landmark settlement marks the end of a major federal lawsuit filed by a bipartisan coalition of dozens of state attorneys general, which alleged it got teens hooked on social media while jeopardizing their mental health and safety.
The settlement, which applies to 48 states and the District of Columbia, was greeted with cautious optimism by advocates arguing tech companies should be legally responsible for the harms they pose to teens.
“My first thought was vindication,” said Matthew Bergman, founder of the Social Media Victims Law Center, which has filed thousands of lawsuits against tech companies over youth safety issues. “Meta has been steadfastly arguing that its platforms are not addictive. That it didn’t do anything wrong. That anything that's occurred for children is their fault or the fault of their parents.”
If approved by a federal judge, the settlement would satisfy claims first lodged in Oct. 2023, in which the states accused Meta of violating consumer-protection laws and the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act by publicly downplaying what it knew about the risks of its products while taking maneuvers to keep kids scrolling their platforms even as it caused them mental distress.
State attorneys general, school districts, and parents have argued that Meta and other social-media companies made deliberate design choices to keep young people glued to their products, including “autoplay,” in which the platform automatically surfaces another video after a user has watched one; “like” counts on social-media posts; and “infinite scrolls” that give users an endless stream of posts on their feeds.
Tech companies disputed those claims, arguing they were protected from legal liability over the effect of user-generated content posted on social media through Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The companies have also questioned whether social media was causing young people harm, and pointed to various safety tools they implemented to keep teens safe.
“Ensuring teens have a safe and productive experience on our platforms is an absolute imperative for Meta,” the company said in a statement on the settlement. “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 came during the second week of a federal bellwether trial in Oakland, Calif., which had been expected to feature testimony from executives such as CEO Mark Zuckerberg, an examination of the company’s internal research, email exchanges between employees, and a slew of safety experts. The states and Meta will also choose an independent auditor to review the company’s compliance with the agreement.
While the settlement is expected to end the trial, experts tell TIME it leaves three key questions still to be resolved:
Among the most significant changes Meta announced as part of the settlement were usage limits for teens under 18, who will be restricted to two hours per day across Facebook and Instagram combined. The setting can only be changed with a parent’s permission. The company will block teens from using Instagram and Facebook between midnight and 6 a.m., though it's making an exception for direct messages. Meta also agreed not to send push notifications to teens during normal school hours. Teens will be notified every 15 minutes of continuous use of Facebook or Instagram and after an hour of use.
The new default settings may help address criticism that the company took extreme measures to hook kids on its platforms, especially at times when they should have been focused on school or sleeping. But Meta’s settlement allows teens far more wiggle room to sidestep other safety features.
Some of the new controls will require user opt-in. Under the agreement, young people (or their parents) can choose a non-algorithmic feed option for their social-media accounts, where the order of content they see isn’t determined by Meta’s recommendation systems. Teens and their parents can also turn off autoplay, so those under the age of 18 have to deliberately press play to see the next video.
But research shows people rarely change their settings from companies’ default offerings, and parents may not understand what those options mean, says Zvika Krieger, a former director of Meta’s responsible innovation team who is now a consultant for technology companies. Additionally, “if young users are just using adult accounts, all this is worthless,” says Krieger, who added that Meta offered little information about how it would improve its age-assurance techniques to spot teens who might be lying about their age. There should be “some concrete level of accountability rather than just saying we're working on improving our age assurance.”
How will other tech companies respond?
The settlement has an unusual quirk: Meta agreed to pay 70% of the settlement total—some $12.7 billion—over the next decade. But the remaining $5.3 billion is conditional, depending on whether YouTube and TikTok implement similar or more restrictive settings, including a one-hour daily time limit.
At a time when Meta faces fierce competition in the teen market from those competitors, the company is planning to run full-page print ads on Thursday in the The Washington Post, New York Times and the Los Angeles Times calling to make those settings the “new industry standard.” Neither TikTok nor Google, which owns YouTube, have commented.
In the past, tech companies have often copied one another’s safety policies. How competitors will respond to Meta’s settlement agreement is an open question.
What happens to similar cases focused on youth safety?
In addition to the action brought by state attorneys general, school districts and families have filed thousands of lawsuits against tech platforms including Meta, Google, Snap, and TikTok, alleging that the design of their products caused harmful consequences for teens. In March, a jury found Meta and YouTube’s product design led to the mental distress of a young woman, and ordered the companies to pay $4.2 million and $1.8 million in damages respectively.
The settlement doesn't change legal precedents governing other ongoing cases. But it does add to plaintiffs’ momentum in the courts, which could lead to more cases, according to Bergman.
Meanwhile, U.S. states and other countries have proposed regulations to restrict teen access to social media, or force tech companies to take bolder actions to safeguard their experience online. Meta has often been the focus of these proposals. It’s possible that regulators could focus their attention on AI companies that haven’t yet faced the same level of legal scrutiny.
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