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Meta to Pay Up to $17 Billion and Implement Sweeping Child-Safety Reforms on Instagram and Facebook
BALTIMORE, MD – Today, Attorney General Anthony G. Brown announced a landmark multistate settlement of up to $17.1 billion with Meta Platforms, Inc. – one of the largest state consumer protection settlements in history outside the Big Tobacco settlements of the 1990s. In addition to the payment, the settlement requires Meta to implement a sweeping set of safety features designed to protect children on Instagram and Facebook. The settlement must be approved by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
The agreement resolves allegations by 47 states and Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands that the company designed Instagram and Facebook with addictive features, knowingly exposed young users to serious mental harms, and intentionally misled the public about the safety of its platforms, among other things. This settlement is a monumental victory for the protection of America’s children and could fundamentally transform how the entire social media industry designs products for kids and teens. Under the settlement, Maryland will receive up to $327 million.
“This settlement is historic, both in size and in scope,” said Attorney General Brown. “It holds Meta accountable for years of putting profit ahead of our children’s wellbeing, and it puts real, enforceable safeguards in place: hard limits on screen time, protections against harmful content, and stronger parental controls. Every parent deserves to know that when their child opens Instagram or Facebook, these platforms are designed with their child’s wellbeing in mind, not just to capture their attention. My office will continue holding technology companies accountable for not putting children first.”
Attorney General Brown also acknowledged that this problem extends well beyond one company and credited Meta for being the first major platform to reach a comprehensive resolution on youth safety.
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 the settlement terms become more widely adopted by other social media platforms, 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, that 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.
These settlement terms impose groundbreaking changes to Instagram and Facebook and are more significant and comprehensive than previously ordered by any court. And perhaps most importantly, this settlement represents a down payment toward an industry-wide social media experience that allows kids to connect in a healthy way.
“Social media companies have a responsibility to the people who use their platforms - and that responsibility is even greater when it comes to our children. For too long, companies have deliberately built products to keep kids scrolling, amplify harmful content, and put profit ahead of children's well-being,” said Governor Wes Moore. “This landmark settlement is the first step towards change. It delivers protections for our children, holds Meta accountable, and provides hundreds of millions of dollars for Maryland. I’m grateful to everyone who helped secure a historic result that makes clear: no company is too powerful to be held accountable for the impact its products have on our communities.”
“As a father of teenagers, I know firsthand how difficult it is to navigate the challenges of raising kids in a world where social media is woven into nearly every part of their lives,” said Senate President Bill Ferguson. “Parents should not have to compete with billion-dollar corporations whose business models are built around keeping our children scrolling for as long as possible. When algorithms are designed to maximize engagement and profit, our kids can become the product. This settlement is an important step in holding the technology industry accountable for the choices it makes and the impact those choices have on children and families. I commend Attorney General Brown for standing up for Maryland families and helping lead this effort to hold one of the world’s largest technology companies accountable. Parents deserve tools that help them protect their children, and our children deserve technology designed with their health, safety and development, not endless engagement, as the priority.”
“Parents should be able to trust that the products their children use are designed with their well-being in mind — not to exploit their vulnerabilities or keep them addicted. Our children’s health and safety must always come before clicks, engagement and corporate profits. I am grateful to Attorney General Brown and this bipartisan coalition for standing up for families and insisting that the technology industry has a responsibility to protect the young people who use their products,” said House Speaker Joseline A. Peña-Melnyk
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 its platforms to addict children while internally documenting the resulting mental health harms and failing to warn parents, attorneys general across the country sued Meta individually or as part of a consolidated federal lawsuit, including Maryland. This settlement resolves those cases and claims by the other settling states and territories. The settlement also resolves existing state 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.
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