Islamabad : A landmark US settlement imposes sweeping new restrictions on teenagers using Facebook and
Instagram, potentially setting a new standard for the social media industry Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has agreed to pay up to $18 billion over the next decade to settle a landmark legal battle with US states over allegations that its platforms were deliberately designed to keep children hooked and contributed to harms affecting young people’s mental health. The settlement, reached with 48 US states, the District of Columbia and US territories, brings to an end a major federal trial in California and requires Meta to introduce significant new restrictions on how teenagers use Facebook and Instagram.
The company, however, has not admitted wrongdoing or legal liability as part of the agreement. No court has found Meta guilty of deliberately causing harm to children. Instead, the company chose to settle the litigation rather than continue the trial. A federal judge approved the main settlement on Aug 26. At the centre of the dispute is a question that has increasingly concerned governments, parents and researchers: are social media platforms designed in ways that encourage young users to remain online for as long as possible?
The states alleged that Meta used engagement driven features, including personalised recommendations and other design techniques, to keep children and teenagers using its platforms. They also accused the company of failing to adequately warn parents and the public about potential risks associated with its products.
The legal battle formed part of a much wider wave of litigation against social media companies. Meta, Google, TikTok and Snap are facing thousands of lawsuits brought by individuals, schools, local governments and states alleging that their products can contribute to addiction and other harms among young users.
Under the new settlement, Meta will impose a series of restrictions on users under 18 in the United States. The most significant measure is a two-hour daily limit on Facebook and Instagram use by teenagers. Access will also be blocked between midnight and 6am, unless a parent gives permission.
Meta will further restrict push notifications during school hours, generally between 8am and 3pm,
while allowing direct messages and important security alerts to continue. Like counts will be hidden for young users by default, and the company will strengthen controls over age restricted content.
The agreement also requires Meta to strengthen its systems for determining whether users are underage. The company will use its own artificial-intelligence tools as well as third-party technology, with independent audits intended to assess how effectively the system identifies minors. The issue of age verification is crucial because almost every other protection in the settlement depends on Meta knowing how old its users are. Meta has already been using artificial intelligence to estimate whether some users are lying about their age. The technology can examine visual and behavioural signals associated with an account and compare them with other information available on the platform.
The company has argued that this is not the same as facial recognition because the purpose is to estimate a user’s age rather than identify the person’s identity. Privacy advocates, however,
remain concerned about the amount of personal information that technology companies may have to analyse in order to determine whether someone is a child or an adult. The challenge is particularly difficult because online age assurance involves a trade off. Stronger checks could make it harder for children to access inappropriate platforms and content, but requiring adults to prove their age could also raise questions about privacy, anonymity and the collection of sensitive personal information. The financial terms of the agreement are also significant.Meta has committed to around $12.7 billion in guaranteed payments, while up to another $5
billion is dependent on whether major rival platforms including Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube adopt comparable protections for children.
The settlement also includes a separate payment of about $459 million to resolve states’ privacy claims connected to the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
That structure could make the agreement particularly important for the wider technology industry. Meta is effectively linking part of its financial liability to whether its competitors make similar
changes. If other major platforms adopt comparable safeguards, the settlement could help establish a new industry standard for the treatment of young users.
The implications may also extend beyond the United States. Governments in several countries are already tightening regulations around children’s use of social media. Australia, for example, has introduced restrictions on social media access for children under 16, while regulators and lawmakers in other jurisdictions are examining the role of
algorithms, age verification and potentially addictive platform design. For technology companies operating globally, the prospect of having to maintain different systems for different countries could also increase pressure to introduce broader changes. But critics say the settlement does not go far enough. Some of the safeguards included in the agreement already exist on Meta’s platforms, although several will now be activated by default for teenagers. Critics argue that the settlement does not fundamentally change the recommendation algorithms that determine what young users see. That is a significant concern because limiting screen time may not address the nature of the content being delivered during that time.
Arturo Béjar, a former Meta engineering director who testified during the trial, welcomed the settlement as an important milestone but warned that the new restrictions alone would not make
Instagram safe for children. He has argued that the way recommendation systems deliver content to teenagers remains a major issue. Other critics have similarly questioned whether parental controls and time limits can address problems created by the underlying design of social media platforms. There is also an enforcement challenge.
A two hour daily limit can only work if Meta can reliably determine which users are under 18. Likewise, age restrictions for children under 13 depend on the company’s ability to identify users who provide false information when creating accounts. The settlement attempts to address this problem by requiring stronger age assurance systems
and independent testing. But experts say determining a person’s exact age through artificial intelligence remains difficult and can produce both false positives and false negatives. The agreement also does not require Meta to abandon personalised recommendations or targeted advertising. Nor does it resolve every concern about content that may affect teenagers, including material related to body image. Some states have therefore refused to join the settlement. New Mexico, which has pursued its own case against Meta and previously secured substantial
penalties and operational changes, remained outside the agreement. Florida also declined to settle, arguing that the deal did not go far enough.
For Meta, the settlement nevertheless represents a major shift.The company is not fundamentally abandoning its business model, and it has not acknowledged that its products caused the harms alleged by the states. But it has agreed to place unprecedented restrictions on how millions of teenagers in the US can use its platforms. For an industry built around maximising attention and engagement, that could be a significant development.The bigger question is whether Meta’s settlement will remain a US-specific legal compromise or become a blueprint for the global social media industry.
If TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat and other major platforms adopt similar protections, the agreement
could mark a turning point in the way technology companies design services for young people.For years, the central question was how much time children should spend online.
Now, the debate is becoming much broader: what should social media platforms be allowed to do to keep children online in the first place?
Meta’s $18 billion settlement does not provide a definitive answer but it may have changed the question and potentially the rules of the game.