Meta has agreed to pay up to $17.1 billion to 47 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands, settling claims that Facebook and Instagram were designed to addict children. The settlement, one of the largest of its kind, requires sweeping product changes that directly affect K-12 environments, including a ban on push notifications during school hours, a default daily time limit, and overnight access restrictions. Payments will be distributed in annual installments over ten years, with roughly 30 percent ($5.3 billion) contingent on YouTube and TikTok implementing similar safety features and paying matching amounts, according to the settlement agreement.
School-Day Notification Blackout and Time Limits
The settlement defines "School Hours" as 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Friday, between August 15 and June 15 each year, subject to adjustment by a supervising parent. During those hours, Meta must disable push notifications for teen users ages 13 to 17 by default, though messaging, account-security, and platform-integrity notifications are exempt. The agreement also requires a default daily time limit of two hours per day for teen users cumulatively across all Meta platforms at Phase I, resetting at midnight local time. A Phase II provision tightens this to 60 minutes per platform per day, not exceeding 120 minutes cumulatively, if triggered by contingent obligations. The daily limit excludes time spent on longform content, messaging, or settings, according to the settlement filing.
Night Access Mode at Phase I blocks teen users from accessing Meta platforms by default from midnight to 6 a.m., with push notifications disabled from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. Phase II extends the block to 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. Messaging and settings remain accessible during night mode. A supervising parent can modify defaults to be more restrictive, but only a parent can loosen them. The agreement also includes "productive pauses": default pauses at 60 and 90 minutes of cumulative daily usage, and a clear notice after any 15-minute session of continuous use. Meta must provide the independent auditor with data on the efficacy of these pauses, according to the settlement filing.
Funds for Schools and Mental Health
The settlement agreement specifies that funds states receive may be used for youth mental health programming, digital literacy counselors, phone-free school zones, outdoor activities, after-school and summer programming, and grants to school districts or other local governments, according to EdWeek. New York's attorney general stated that eligible initiatives include grants to implement phone-free classrooms and training for mental health professionals to serve students. California could receive approximately $2.2 billion and New York approximately $1.1 billion as their shares, paid out over ten years, according to Reuters.
Texas reached a separate settlement with Meta worth over $1 billion. Per the Texas Attorney General's office, the funds will support youth mental health services, crisis resources, digital literacy initiatives, after-school programs, and grants for Texas schools. The Texas settlement explicitly names school grants as a funding target, while the multistate settlement leaves broader language allowing but not requiring states to direct money to phone-free school zones and school district grants.
Other Product Changes for Teens
Meta also agreed to hide "like" and reaction counts by default for teen users, ban cosmetic procedure filters, restrict access to "extreme makeup" filters, and give teens the option to use a non-personalized chronological feed and turn off autoplay, according to The Verge. These changes apply across Facebook and Instagram for users identified as teens.
Comparison to Tobacco Settlement
The multistate settlement structure echoes the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement with tobacco companies, where state attorneys general secured billions in payments from an industry over public health harms, with funds directed to states for remediation and prevention programs. EdWeek noted that much of the tobacco money was not ultimately spent on anti-smoking efforts. The Meta settlement similarly leaves allocation largely to state discretion.
Mixed Research on Time Limits
Research on the effectiveness of the mandated design changes is mixed. Jackie Silverman, an associate professor of marketing at Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management, found that limiting push notifications does reduce social media use, according to EdWeek. However, her research on screen time limits found that a high limit can lead users who were previously spending less time to increase their usage up to the allowed amount. She indicated that further research would be needed to assess whether Meta's design changes produce their intended effects, according to EdWeek.
The settlement requires Meta to report data on productive pause efficacy to the independent auditor, establishing a built-in evaluation mechanism. An independent auditor will assess Meta's compliance and the effectiveness of the safety features for five years, according to IAPP. Meta must also conduct internal user research and expert consultations to evaluate the impact of productive pauses on reducing excessive teen usage.