Five months after a Los Angeles jury found the company used addictive practices to hook children, Meta has reached a $16.68 billion settlement with California and 28 other states that will significantly change how Instagram and Facebook interact with children and teens, state Attorney General Rob Bonta announced Wednesday.
If the settlement is approved by a federal court judge in Oakland, the changes will include daily time limits, a halt to notifications during school hours, blocks on nighttime use, bans on dangerous filters, enhanced detection and removal of users under 13, Bonta said.
“Alongside a bipartisan coalition, I’m proud to deliver real transparency and real change to protect children’s and teens’ mental health and support parents across the country,” he added.
The settlement was announced amid a federal trial in Oakland, with Bonta and counterparts from Colorado, New Jersey, and Kentucky leading the litigation representing 29 states.
In addition to the structural changes, the settlement includes a payout of $16.68 billion. California stands to receive between $1.5 billion and $2.1 billion, according to Bonta’s office.
The sate Legislature and the governor will ultimately decide how the money is spent, but the proposed settlement is earmarked for programs related to the prevention or remediation of mental health harms to young Californians associated with social media use, including possible school grants, crisis intervention and online safety initiatives.
More than 3,000 lawsuits against Meta and other social media companies have been consolidated before Judge Gonzalez Rogers of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
In a statement on its website, Meta insisted it has been diligently working to provide a safe online environment for youth.
“Over the years, we have consistently partnered with parents and experts — listening, learning, and building,” according to the company. “That’s why we launched Teen Accounts in 2024, to bring automatic protections to teens, and more control for parents.
“Ensuring teens have a safe and productive experience on our platforms is an absolute imperative for Meta. 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.”
Meta also called on TikTok and YouTube to adopt the operational changes included in the settlement.
In March, Meta and YouTube were both found liable in a landmark civil lawsuit in Los Angeles accusing the social media companies of using addictive practices that allegedly hooked children on the sites and contributed to mental health and other harms.
The Los Angeles jury awarded a total of $3 million in compensatory damages to the 20-year-old plaintiff, with Meta directed to pay 70% of that amount, and YouTube 30%. The panel, which found the companies acted with malice, then awarded $3 million in punitive damages, with roughly the same percentage split between the two companies.
That case was closely watched as a possible bellwether of the fate of thousands of similar lawsuits.
The lawsuit involved a plaintiff known only as K.G.M., who testified during the trial that she began using social media sites when she was as young as 6 years old.
Plaintiff’s attorney Mark Lanier argued that his young client, who had uploaded hundreds of videos before she was even a teenager, became vulnerable to the Meta and YouTube platforms. He referred to the social media companies as “behemoths,” and compared them to a lion stalking a pack of vulnerable gazelles.
TikTok and Snap were originally defendants in the lawsuit, but both reached settlements before the trial began in the courtroom of Judge Carolyn Barbara Kuhl.
The social media companies strongly denied all allegations in K.G.M.’s lawsuit and maintained they are committed to the well-being of their young users. Attorneys questioned the concept of social media being an addiction, and suggested that other factors in K.G.M’s life — including alleged verbal and physical abuse by her parents — led to her mental health struggles.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified in the Los Angeles trial that while pre-teens are barred from using the company’s services, some minors still break the rules to do so.
Zuckerberg told jurors that minors under age 13 are not permitted to use the Meta platforms, but there are individuals who will do so anyway. He said the company removes users who are found to be underage. K.G.M. was under the age limit when she began using the products, and Zuckerberg suggested it is up to users to read the terms.