Meta has agreed to pay up to $17.1 billion and make sweeping changes to Facebook and Instagram as part of a landmark settlement with dozens of U.S. states over claims that the company designed its platforms to addict children and teens and misled the public about the risks.
The deal, announced Wednesday, ends a high-profile federal trial that began last week in Oakland. Attorneys general from 47 states, the District of Columbia and several U.S. territories accused Meta of using addictive features that harmed young users’ mental health while internally documenting those harms. The settlement still requires approval from U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.
Meta will pay at least about $12.1 billion over 10 years. The total can rise to $17.1 billion if TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat adopt comparable safety rules and make similar payments to the states. Some reports put the company’s overall outlay, including a separate roughly $1 billion resolution with Texas, near $18 billion. Meta denied wrongdoing.
“Today, we have secured a settlement with Meta that will make social media less dangerous for our kids,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said. California, one of the lead plaintiffs, stands to receive $1.5 billion to $2.1 billion. Other states also expect large shares, including New York (up to $1.15 billion), New Jersey (at least $525 million) and Virginia (a guaranteed $353 million). Funds are earmarked for youth mental health, online safety programs and related initiatives.
The original 2023 lawsuit, filed by 29 states and later joined by others, alleged Meta “enticed, engaged and ultimately ensnared” young users. Lead states California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey had been seeking damages that could have reached hundreds of billions of dollars. Trial testimony and internal documents, according to the states, showed the company knew its products contributed to anxiety, depression, sleep disruption and other problems but continued to prioritize engagement for advertising revenue.
Under the agreement, Meta must implement default daily time limits and other restrictions for users under 18. Teens will face a combined two-hour cap across Instagram and Facebook, with mandatory “productive pauses” after 15 minutes of continuous use and additional prompts at 60 and 90 minutes. Parents can override the limit. If major rivals adopt similar rules, the daily cap would drop to one hour and last 10 years instead of five.
Additional safeguards include a default nighttime block from midnight to 6 a.m., silenced notifications from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. in some descriptions, and a “school mode” that mutes most push notifications from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekdays during the school year. Meta must also strengthen age-verification tools to better identify users under 13 and under 18, hide “likes” for teen accounts in some cases, and appoint an independent auditor to monitor compliance. Direct messages are generally excluded from the time limits so teens can stay in touch with family and friends.
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said the focus was “protecting our kids: stopping notifications and alerts at night and when they are in school, encouraging them to take breaks from social media, protecting them against harmful features.” He added that the terms exceeded what most courts might have ordered.
Meta framed the agreement as building on existing Teen Accounts features and as an industry standard it wants competitors to follow. “Ensuring teens have a safe and productive experience on our platforms is an absolute imperative,” the company said. Chief Legal Officer C.J. Mahoney said the new time limits, night mode and school-hour restrictions “set the right path forward for our whole industry, but this framework will only work if all our peers join us.” He called on TikTok and YouTube to implement the same framework immediately.
The settlement is among the largest state consumer-protection deals in U.S. history outside the 1990s tobacco settlements. It does not resolve all litigation against Meta. The company still faces lawsuits from school districts, individual families and some states that pursued separate cases, including New Mexico, which earlier this year won a $375 million jury verdict. Florida also is not part of the main coalition payout.
Attorneys general described the outcome as a turning point that could pressure the broader social media industry to redesign products for younger users. Meta’s stock rose modestly after the announcement. The company, valued at more than $1 trillion, has said youth-safety cases posed a risk of material loss. The new restrictions strike at features that keep users scrolling — the same engagement that drives advertising revenue.
Whether the changes meaningfully reduce harm will depend on enforcement, parental overrides and whether other platforms follow. States said they will use the money to address mental-health effects they attribute to social media. Meta said it wants to get the experience right for parents and teens. The judge is expected to review the consent judgment in the coming weeks.
