Ashtyn Asay New Jersey is helping lead what state officials are calling a historic settlement with Meta that could change how Instagram and Facebook operate for children and teens. Attorney General Jennifer Davenport announced on August 26th that Meta Platforms, Inc. will pay up to $17.1 billion to settle claims over the company’s alleged role in exposing young users to harmful and addictive social media features. New Jersey will receive at least $525 million from the settlement and could receive more than $752 million. The agreement also requires Meta to implement a sweeping set of new safety measures designed to protect children and teens who use Instagram and Facebook. Keep reading to learn more about the settlement.
What This Means for Kids
“As a parent, protecting your kids is always your North Star. And this agreement achieves critical protections for our children today,” Attorney General Davenport said in a press release. “It would not have been possible without our amazing litigation team, who worked with their counterparts across the country to bring this groundbreaking case.”
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Under the agreement, Meta will introduce new restrictions and safety features on Instagram and Facebook aimed at limiting how much time young users spend on the platforms, reducing nighttime and school-day use, and giving parents additional tools to oversee their children’s accounts. For five years, children and teens will face a combined daily limit of two hours on Instagram and Facebook, with automatic pauses after 15 minutes of continuous use and again after 60 and 90 minutes. If Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube adopt comparable terms, the daily limit on each platform will drop to 60 minutes and remain in effect for 10 years.
The agreement also includes nighttime blocks, restricting youth access to Instagram and Facebook between midnight and 6AM. During the school year, children’s access will also be limited during school hours, with restricted push notifications on weekdays between 8AM and 3PM. Other changes include enhanced age-verification procedures, stronger protections against bullying and content related to eating disorders, suicide, and self-harm, as well as easier-to-use parental controls. Meta will also restrict certain social comparison features, including beauty filters and visible “like” counts that the states say have been linked to poor mental health outcomes among children and teens.
Why New Jersey Sued Meta
New Jersey began co-leading a bipartisan multistate investigation into the social media industry in 2021 to assess whether platforms were intentionally designed and promoted to children and teens. The resulting lawsuit, filed in 2023, alleged that Meta designed features on Instagram and Facebook that encouraged excessive use among young people and contributed to mental and physical harms. The states also alleged that Meta knew about the potential risks while misleading parents, users, and the public about the safety of its platforms.
The case included claims that excessive social media use distracted children during the school day and interfered with their sleep at night. The trial over Meta’s alleged deception began in Oakland, California, in August, with New Jersey Attorney General Davenport joining the attorneys general of California, Colorado, and Kentucky in leading the trial team. The settlement resolves claims brought by dozens of states, as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands.
Meta Will Also Pay for Facebook Privacy Claims
The August 26th announcement includes another settlement involving Meta’s handling of user data. Many of the same jurisdictions also announced a resolution of claims related to Meta’s sharing of nonpublic Facebook user information with third parties, including Cambridge Analytica, ahead of the 2016 election. Meta will pay more than $460 million to resolve those separate data-privacy claims, and New Jersey will receive more than $20 million from that settlement.
See More: Virginia to Receive $353M in $17B Meta Settlement
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