Meta’s agreement to pay up to $18 billion to settle claims that Facebook and Instagram harmed children could mark a turning point in the global debate over social media safety.
The settlement, announced on Wednesday, brings to an early end a closely watched legal battle involving 29 US states over the company’s treatment of children and their personal data.
At the centre of the case was the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), a nearly 30-year-old US law designed to protect the online privacy of children under 13. Prosecutors alleged that Meta had improperly collected and used children’s data over several years.
But the case became much broader than a dispute over privacy. It placed Meta’s wider approach to protecting young users under intense scrutiny and added to mounting pressure on social media companies around the world.
The trial lasted just five days and ended before Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg was called to testify.
The proceedings exposed allegations from former Instagram employee and whistleblower Arturo Bejar, who told the court that he had warned Meta executives about harmful experiences affecting children on the platform but believed his concerns were not acted upon.
Another Meta executive said he could not remember authoring a presentation suggesting the company sometimes opted to pay regulatory fines rather than make changes.
Internal documents also indicated that Meta was aware that safety tools requiring users to actively opt in often had low adoption rates, despite some of those features not being switched on by default.
Meta has strongly defended its efforts to protect children and has introduced dozens of safety features across Facebook and Instagram. However, some parents have said the sheer number of tools places too much responsibility on them to monitor and control their children’s online activity.
The potential financial consequences of losing the case were enormous. The maximum theoretical penalty was estimated at about $1.4 trillion, although such an outcome was considered highly unlikely.
By comparison, Meta’s settlement of up to $18 billion, to be paid over 10 years, represents a considerably smaller financial hit.
Meta has not admitted wrongdoing as part of the agreement.
As part of the settlement, Meta has agreed to introduce significant changes to how Facebook and Instagram operate for teenagers.
Among the measures is a default two-hour daily usage limit across the two platforms for known teen users. Direct messaging, however, will not count towards the limit.
Meta will also mute notifications between midnight and 06:00, as well as during school hours from 08:00 to 15:00 on school days.
Likes on posts and other content will also be hidden from teenagers.
Most of the measures are expected to become defaults or available options for teen users within six months. Meta’s efforts to improve its ability to identify child users are expected to take up to a year to implement.
The changes could eventually extend beyond the United States, particularly as governments and regulators in other countries increase pressure on social media companies to address concerns about children’s online safety.
Meta has also acknowledged that the measures will be more effective if competing platforms adopt similar restrictions.
