Meta has agreed to pay $17 billion and add stronger child-safety measures to its Facebook and Instagram platforms to end a landmark trial over teen social media addiction and settle claims filed by 47 states, state attorneys general announced Wednesday.
The settlement resolves a pivotal legal case years in the making that sought to hold the tech giant accountable for the role its platforms played in undermining children’s mental health. The effort targeted features designed to hook young people’s attention.
“For years, Meta intentionally deceived the public about the addictive and harmful design features that have wreaked havoc on youth mental health,” the Virginia attorney general, Jay Jones, said. The settlement “will put an end to these dangerous practices and deliver meaningful relief that will protect children from online harm,” Jones said.
California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, said the money would be paid out over 10 years, with the state getting at least $1.5 billion if the settlement is approved by the court. New Jersey expects to receive at least $525 million. Massachusetts said it was in line for at least $366 million. Virginia’s share is worth $353 million.
Meta urges rivals to adopt similar safety measures
Meta said in a blog post that it was “building on our longstanding efforts to empower parents and support teens.”
“Ensuring teens have a safe and productive experience on our platforms is an absolute imperative for Meta,” the company said. “We want to get this right for parents and teens, and that’s why we partnered with state attorneys general to set a new industry standard.”
The company urged rivals TikTok and YouTube to adopt similar safety measures.
The $17 billion settlement is a fraction of Meta’s 2025 revenue of $201 billion.
The agreement cuts short a court case involving California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey, which were among 29 states that sued Meta in 2023. Its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, was among those expected to take the stand before a jury in federal court in California.
The lawsuit accused Meta of contributing to the youth mental health crisis by deliberately designing features that addict children to its platforms and hiding them from the public. The case also argued that Meta violated federal laws by routinely collecting data on children under 13 without their parents’ consent.
The trial kicked off last week in Oakland, California, with U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers overseeing the proceedings. Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, began his testimony late Tuesday and defended Meta’s record and progress on child safety and privacy.
The cases in other states had been expected to go to trial later. In addition, nine attorneys general filed lawsuits in their respective states.
New features to include time limits and curbs on push notifications
Under the proposed settlement, Meta agreed to adopt a series of safety features, including a “hard cap” on daily time limits and pauses for children using Instagram and Facebook.
It will eliminate push notifications during weekday school hours and bring in “robust” age-assurance measures and “age-appropriate” content controls to prevent bullying and harmful material about eating disorders and self-harm.
There will be stronger and more user-friendly parental controls and limits on social comparison features such as “like” counts.
An independent auditor will assess how Meta is implementing the safety features and how effective they are.
Meta put the settlement at $18 billion, a figure that apparently includes a large award for Texas.
The money is to be paid out annually over 10 years, to fund youth online safety initiatives. However, the company said 30% of that amount—about $5.3 billion—will be released to states only if YouTube and TikTok meet two conditions: implementing similar safety features, including a one-hour daily time limit, a nighttime block, and age-assurance measures; and paying the same amount, split between the two companies.
Neither YouTube’s owner, Google, nor TikTok responded immediately to requests for comments.
Investigation was led by bipartisan coalition
The federal lawsuit was the result of an investigation led by a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general from California, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee, and Vermont. It followed newspaper reports, first by The Wall Street Journal in 2021, that found the company knew about the harm Instagram can cause teenagers— specially girls—when it comes to mental health and body image issues.
Meta has since added a host of safety features to Instagram, including separate accounts for teenagers with stronger protections around messaging and privacy, along with content restrictions.
But child safety experts, along with some former Meta employees, have long contended that the features are little more than window dressing.
Arturo Béjar, a former Meta engineering director, said during his testimony last week that Meta consistently prioritized profits over safety in designing its products, focusing on how often and for how long people used them, even if it was detrimental to their mental well-being.
“If you step away from the product, they are not going to make any money,” he said.
While the four states in the Oakland trial did not officially say how much they had been seeking, Meta said in a court filing that financial penalties in the case could amount to as much as $1.4 trillion—a figure legal experts said was unlikely, if not impossible.
—Barbara Ortutay and Kelvin Chan
Associated Press Writer Sarah Rankin contributed to this report.
